The provisions dealing with the election of the President are provided in Art. 54 and 55 and the President Elections Act 1952, amended in 1974. The President is elected by an electoral college which consists of the elected members of the state legislature (the MLA) and those of the parliament through proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. Members of legislature councils in states have no right to vote. Also the members of the legislature assemblies of the union territories, so far, have not participated in the electoral college.
Art. 55 lays down that as far as it is practicable there should be uniformity in the scale of representation of the different states. The value of vote of an MLA and MP is such that a true federal character of the office of the president is maintained by striking a balance between the states and the centre.
Value of vote of an MLA:
Population of the State 1 Total elected number of 2 The State legislatures.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
This means that the value of votes of an MLA differs from one state to another in accordance with the population size. This is done to give equality of representation in terms of population.
Value of vote of an MP = Value of votes of Total MLAs (elected) Total elected members of the Parliament To be declared elected to the office of the President more than 50% of the voted votes are required by a Presidential candidate. In the year 2000 the union cabinet decided to extend the freeze on undertaking the fresh delimitation of parliamentary and assembly constituencies up to 2026.
If in the first counting no candidate obtains the requisite quota, the process of transfer of votes is set in motion. The candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and his second preferences are added to the first preference votes of other candidates. This process continues until a candidate with requisite quota emerges. This procedure ensures that president-elect has an absolute majority behind him.