Contest Likely For Presidents Post

It is too early to talk about the possibility of a consensus on the next President, as parties are gearing up for the presidential election. The term of President Shanker Dayal Sharma expires on July 25, 1997. Given the fact that former Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan has thrown in his hat for the contest, and has also started lobbying support, a contest for the top post appears most likely.

The process for electing the President of India is a complex one, consisting of a large electoral college. What is peculiar about the election is that not all votes carry the same value.

 

The president is elected by members of an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of Parliament and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of the states, including the national capital territory of Delhi and the Union territory of Pondicherry.

The election is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation, by means of the single transferable vote and the voting is by secret ballot.

The Constitution requires that there should be uniformity in the scale of representation of the different states. For this, a formula is given in the Constitution for determination of the value of vote, which each elected MP and of the Assembly of each state is entitled to cast.

Total value of votes of all members of each Assembly is worked out by multiplying the number of elective seats in the Assembly by the number of votes for each member. For example, for Andhra it would be 294 x 148.

The total value of votes of all the states added together is divided by the total number of elected members of Parliament (Lok Sabha 543 plus Rajya Sabha 233) to get the value of votes for each member of Parliament.

The value of votes of each elector has already been determined by the Election Commission on the basis of the 1971 census, according to which each MPs vote will carry the value of 708. The value of UP MLAs vote will be 208 each and that of Sikkim, seven each.

The ballot paper does not contain any symbol. It has only two columns. The left column has the names of the candidates, and the right one says mark the order of your preference. The voters have to put their order of preference in writing. To get elected, there is a need to get a minimum amount of votes, called the minimum quota votes. This is determined by dividing the total value of valid votes by two and adding one to the quotient, ignoring the remainder.

If the total value of votes of the candidate who has polled the highest first preference votes is above the quota, which is usually the case, he is declared elected. Otherwise, the second preference is taken into account by eliminating the candidate who has got the least first preference vote and then distributing his second preference votes to the respective candidates.

The total number of members in the electoral college in 1997 is 4,848 - 233 Rajya Sabha MPs, 543 Lok Sabha members, and 4,072 Assembly voters.

It would be the eleventh presidential election. The previous elections were held in 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1969, 1974, 1977, 1982, 1987, and the last one in 1992.