President Election 2022
President Election 2022
President Election 2022
Mr. Ramnath Kovind completes his tenure as President in July. With the Election
Commission of India expected to notify the election dates this week, we look at
how India will elect its next President.
As the Head of the State, the President is a key part of Parliament. The President
calls the two Houses of Parliament into session on the advice of the Council of
Ministers. A Bill passed by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha does not become a
law unless assented to by the President. Further, when Parliament is not in session,
the President holds the power to sign a law with immediate effect through an
Ordinance.
In 1997, the Act was further amended to increase the security deposit to Rs 15,000
and the minimum number of proposers and seconders to 50 each.
The value of an MP's vote is the sum of all votes of MLAs across the country
divided by the number of elected MPs.
Based on the assumption that J&K is not included in the 2022 Presidential election,
the total number of votes of MLAs in 2022 elections will have to be adjusted. The
87 Jammu and Kashmir MLAs must be removed from the total number of MLAs
of 4,120. Jammu and Kashmir’s contributing vote share of 6,264 must also be
reduced from the total vote share of 549,495. Adjusting for these changes, 4,033
MLAs will participate in the 2022 elections and the combined vote share of all
MLAs will add up to 543,231.
Total value of
Number of Population (1971 Value of vote of
Name of State votes for the
Assembly seats Census) each MLA
state (B x D)
A B C D E
Table 1: The value of votes of elected MLAs of different states at the 2017
Presidential Election
Source: Election Commission of India (2017); PRS.
The value of an MP’s vote correspondingly will change from 708 in 2017 to 700 in
2022.
Value of one MP's vote = Total value of all votes of MLAs = 543231 =
700
Total number of elected MPs 776
Note that the value of an MP’s vote is rounded off to the closest whole number.
This brings the combined value of the votes of all MPs to 543,200 (700 x 776).
Assuming that each elector casts his vote and that each vote is valid:
Quota = Total value of MP’s votes + Total value of MLA’s votes + 1
2
The anti-defection law which disallows MPs from crossing the party line does not
apply to the Presidential election. This means that the MPs and MLAs can keep
their ballot secret.
The counting of votes takes place in rounds. In Round 1, only the first preference
marked on each ballot is counted. If any of the candidates secures the quota at this
stage, he or she is declared the winner. If no candidate secures the quota in the first
round, then another round of counting takes place. In this round, the votes cast to
the candidate who secures the least number of votes in Round 1 are transferred.
This means that these votes are now added to the second preference candidate
marked on each ballot. This process is repeated till only one candidate remains.
Note that it is not compulsory for an elector to mark his preference for all
candidates. If no second preference is marked, then the ballots are treated as
exhausted ballots in Round 2 and are not counted further.
The fifth Presidential election which elected Mr. VV Giri is the only instance when
a candidate did not secure the quota in the first round. The second preference
votes were then evaluated and Mr. Giri secured 4,20,077 of the 8,36,337 votes and
was declared the President.