[Watch] How The President of India Is Elected

New Delhi: The President of India is elected not directly by the country’s citizens but indirectly through people’s elected representatives — members of both Houses of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies of states, which is known as the electoral college.

The polling takes place in Parliament House, state Legislative Assemblies and the Union Territories (UTs).

CANDIDATES IN 2022

Droupadi Murmu, a tribal BJP leader from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district and former Governor of Jharkhand, is the BJP-led NDA’s Presidential candidate. The Opposition has fielded former Union minister Yashwant Sinha against her.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Total votes: 10,86,431

NDA has 5,32,351 votes, BJD has 31,686 votes, YSR Congress has 45,550 votes and AIADMK has 14,940 votes.

BJD and YSRC have announced support for Murmu. AIADMK is also likely to vote for Murmu. BSP has also announced to support her, among other parties.

A total of 4,896 elected representatives — 4,120 MLAs and 776 MPs (543 Lok Sabha MPs and 233 Rajya Sabha MPs) will take part in the election.

The polling is based on a system of proportional representation and a single transferable vote system.

VOTING

The vote of an MP or MLA is not counted as one. Rather, the value is determined based on the population of a state in accordance with the Census data of 1971.

The value of a vote is determined as per the following formula:

MLAs

* Value of an MLA’s vote = Total population of state (1971 census)/ Total members in state Assembly X 1,000

So, the value of an MLA’s vote is higher in a more populous state compared to a state with less population.

This is proportional representation.

The total value of votes of all MLAs taken together across the country is 5,49,495.

MPs

* Value of an MP’s vote = Total value of MLA votes/ Total MPs or 5,49,495/776 = 708

The total value of all 776 MPs is thus 708 X 776 = 5,49,408

The total value of the Electoral College comes to 5,49,495 (MLAs) + 5,49,408 (MPs) = 10,98,903

This includes the total vote value of MLAs of Jammu and Kashmir. Reportedly, however, the newly formed UT has not been included in the Electoral College for the 2022 Presidential elections.

COUNTING OF VOTES

A President is elected based on a single transferable voting system. In a secret ballot, members of the Electoral College rank candidates in order of their preference.

To determine the winner, the total number of valid votes is divided by 2 and 1 is added to the total.

A candidate with the minimum number of votes is eliminated first. However, the votes cast in his favour are not discarded and instead transferred to the other candidates.

If a candidate reaches the vote quota, he or she is declared the winner. If vote quota is not achieved, then the next candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and his votes are transferred.

During the 2017 Presidential elections, the number of valid votes cast was 10,69,358. The vote quota was (1069358/2)+1 = 5,34,680. Ram Nath Kovind received 7,02,044 votes.

(Compiled from web reports)