Presidential Polls 2022 - How The President Of India Will Be Selected?

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh has also cast his vote.

The 15th presidential election is going on to select the country's next potential candidate to become the president. The election is taking place between the BJP-led NDA alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu and the opposition's candidate Yashwant Sinha.

The election started today morning at 10 am and will be happening till evening at 5 pm. The election is happening in the parliament house and all state legislative assemblies. It has been noted that around 4,800 MPs and MLAs shall cast their votes today. The vote counting will be done on July 21 and the desired presidential candidate will be taking oath on July 25th.

Let us know how the election will be taking place: process, eligibility criteria, composition etc.

The article 54 of the Indian constitution lays down criteria's to elect a president. The Presidential and Vice- Presidential Election Act of 1952 was the outcome for establishing this provision of the constitution. Here are the qualifications needed to become a president-

1. He/ she must be an Indian citizen.
2. The person must be 35 and years above.
3. The person must be qualified for election as a member of the house of the people.
4. He/ she must not hold a office of profit of the government's either central or state, but
5. Can be elected to be a president if he/ she is holding the office of President or Vice President.
6. If holding the office of Governor.
7. If holding the office of Union or State Minister.
8. The President of India gets elected indirectly by a process called Electoral College with the system of Proportional Representation.
9. The Proportional Representation is carried by utilizing single transferrable vote system and secret ballots.
10. The MPs and MLAs cast their vote based on the parity and uniformity values.

Electoral College: Composition

• Legislative assemblies of the states- article 333 states, every state's legislative assembly must consist of not less than 60 members but not more than 500 members.
• Council of States- based on skills or knowledge in arts, literature, science, social service to act as the members of the council of states, 12 members are nominated by the President. Therefore, 238 members act as representatives from both the states and union territories.
• House of the People- the House of the People consists of 530 members not exceeding from the state territorial constituencies. This process is done through direct election. The President of the Union Territories further elects 20 more members.

Scale of representation of states

The formula for maintaining proportionality between the values of votes is:

Value of vote of an MLA= total no. of the population of the particular state/ number of elected MLAs of that state divided by 1000.

Single vote system

During the course of presidential elections, a number of one vote can be cast against each voter. The votes of the MLAs may vary from state to state but the votes of MP are said to remain constant.

Vote balance of MPS and MLAs

The total value of the MPs' vote must be equal to the total value of the MLAs to maintain the state and union balance.

Winning quota

The presidential candidate who reaches the winning quota or exceeds it is declared as a winner. The formula is- Winning quota total number of poll/ no. of seats + 1.

Voter's preference

When the election is going on, the voter casts his vote in favour of his first preferred candidate. But if the first preference candidate does not reach the winning quota, the vote is automatically transferred to the second preference.

Vote transfer

The first preferred candidate having the lowest vote is eliminated and the votes that he or she gets transferred to the remaining candidates.

Also Read: Assam: 70 Summoned For Allegedly Holding Fake PhD Degree

Also Watch: