Explained: How is the President of India elected?

President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (File)

The election for the next President of India will be held on July 18, the Election Commission said on June 9. The counting will take place on July 21, the poll panel said.

The term of President Ram Nath Kovind ends on July 24 and an election for the next president has to be held before that day.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won four out of the five states which went to polls in February- March. Still, it may not have the numbers to get the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate as the next President of India. The Opposition parties have indicated their intention to put up joint candidates for both the presidential and vice-presidential elections. Neither of the sides has announced any candidate yet.

Moneycontrol explains how the president is elected.

 How is the President elected?

The President is elected by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of states and the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry.

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So, the electoral college has 776 members of Parliament (543 Lok Sabha MPs, 233 Rajya Sabha MPs), and 4,809 members of state legislative assemblies.

The value of electoral college is 10,86,431 votes. The value of the vote of each elector (MP/MLA) is predetermined. For each MP, the value is fixed at 708. For an MLA, this value is determined by a formula involving the population (based on the 1971 Census) of the state he/she represents. Hence, the value differs from state to state.

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— Election Commission of India #SVEEP (@ECISVEEP) June 9, 2022

For example, each MLA from Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, carries the highest value of 208 among all states. The 403 Uttar Pradesh MLAs together have a total value of 83,824. The 80 MPs from the state have a total vote value of 56,640, taking the overall value of votes of MPs and MLAs from the state to 1.4 lakh, giving them nearly 12.7 percent weightage.

Also, read | Value of vote of MPs likely to go down to 700 from 708 in July presidential elections

Among smaller states such as Punjab, the vote value for an MLA is 118. In Uttarakhand, it is 64, and in Goa, it is 20. Thus the total value of Punjab is 13,572, Uttarakhand 4,480 and Goa 800.

After the nominations are filed, the MLAs, in their states and Union territories, and MPs, in Parliament, are given ballot papers (green for MPs and pink for MLAs) to cast their votes.

This time, however, the value of the vote of a Member of Parliament is likely to go down to 700 from 708 in the presidential polls scheduled in July due to the absence of a legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir, according to a report in PTI

The maths

The winner of the presidential election is not the person who wins the maximum votes but the person who gets more votes above a certain quota.

So, after calculating the total value of votes polled by each candidate, the returning officer adds up the value of all valid votes polled. The quota is determined by dividing the sum of valid votes by 2 and adding one to the quotient.

For example, say, the total value of valid votes polled by all candidates is 1,00,001. The quota required for getting elected will be calculated by dividing 1,00,001 by 2 and adding 1 to the quotient, i.e., 50,000.50 + 1 (.50 called the remainder is ignored). Thus, the quota will be 50,000 + 1 = 50,001.

In case no one gets more votes than the quota, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated.

NDA numbers – from 2017 to 2022

In 2017, NDA’s candidate Ram Nath Kovind bagged 661,278 votes (65.65 percent) while Congress-led Opposition’s Meira Kumar won 434,241votes (34.35 per cent). That time, the NDA was in power in 21 states.

Cut to 2022, the political landscape of the country has altered, especially after March 10, when the results of assembly polls to five states were declared.

Today, the BJP-led NDA is in power in 17 states. Between 2017 and 2022, the BJP and its allies have lost big states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan and smaller ones like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. It, however, regained power in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.

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The BJP has lost allies like the TDP, Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal in between. The JD(U), however, is back in the NDA fold.

The NDA is at least 1.2 percentage points away from the 50 percent vote share it requires for its candidate to win the presidential poll, according to a report in the Print. This fall in the NDA vote share is because the BJP’s numbers have fallen in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assemblies, compared to what it had after the 2017 state polls.

In Uttar Pradesh, for example, the BJP had won 312 seats and its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) had won 11. Even before the 2022 polls, the alliance’s strength had fallen to 315 in the state due to vacancies. In the latest polls, the numbers fell further. The BJP won 255 while the Apna Dal (S) won 12. This, along with six MLAs from BJP ally Nishad Party, takes the NDA count to 273 seats.

Of friends and allies

The BJP is taking no chances in ensuring its nominee gets elected. Last month, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan was in Patna to meet Janata Dal (United) leader and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. BJP’s ties with NDA ally, JDU, have been under strain in recent months. Kumar has supported the Opposition’s presidential candidate in the past.

Regional parties are the key to electing the President. Prominent among them are Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), K Chandrashekar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

The TMC, AAP and TRS, the ‘unfriendly’ allies, are unlikely to support the NDA candidate. In March, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said that despite its recent victory in four state elections, winning the upcoming presidential polls will not be easy for the BJP.

Also, read | Significance of recent assembly elections on presidential polls

Under these circumstances, the BJP banks on the YSRCP and the BJD to secure a majority in the college.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have recently met YSRCP 's  Jagan Mohan Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and BJD's Naveen Patnaik , the chief minister of Odisha.

YSRCP has 4 percent and BJD has about 3 percent share in the electoral college. In 2017, the YSRCP has supported the NDA candidate. Although the BJD supported NDA’s nominee Ram Nath Kovind in 2017, it did not support the NDA candidate for the vice-president’s post. Instead, it supported the UPA nominee Gopal Krishna Gandhi.