India being a democratic republic, there shall always be a President of India under the provisions of the Constitution (Article 52). He is the head of the state
(nominal head) and holds the highest elective office in the country.
The following provisions of the Constitution provides for Election and the Manner of Election of
- Article 54: Election of President
- Article 55: Manner of election of President.
- Article 56: Term of office of President
- Article 57: Eligibility for re-election.
- Article 58: Qualifications for election as President
Procedure for Election:
- The Election Commission of India conducts and overseas the Election of the President of India and He/ She is elected through an
electoral college by the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and the voting shall be by
secret ballot.
- The candidate intending to stand in the election, must file the nomination along with a signed list of 50 proposers and 50 seconders. These
proposers and seconders can be anyone from the total members of the electoral college from the State and national level.
- There has to be uniformity in the scale of representation of the different states at the election of the President.
- Each elected member of either House of Parliament shall have such number of votes as may be obtained by dividing the total number of votes assigned to the members of the State Legislation Assemblies by the total number of elected members parliament.
- Every elected member of the legislative assembly of a State shall have as many votes as there are multiples of one thousand in the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by the total number of elected members of the Assembly.
- A candidate, in order to be declared elected to the office of President, must secure a fixed quota of votes. It is determined as follows:
- The electors indicate their preference of the candidates in the ballot paper, in the first phase all the 1st preference votes are counted. If the candidate does not get quota, then transfer of votes are set in motion till one gets to quota and such a person is declared as candidate to the president’s office.
The president of India is the symbol of unity, integrity and solidarity of India. Though he/she is a nominal head, but all the executive actions are formally taken on the president’s name. He/ She also acts as a check and balance and plays crucial role in our democratic polity.