Presidential election: President Ram Nath Kovind's term will end on July 24
Elections to choose the next President of India will be held on July 18, the Election Commission of India announced today. President Ram Nath Kovind's term will end on July 24, and the successor must be elected before that.
Who elects the President of India?
The president is chosen by the members of the electoral college which consists of elected members of both houses of Parliament, and elected members of the legislative assemblies of all states including the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry.
The nominated members of either Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha or legislative assemblies of the states are not eligible to be included in the electoral college and therefore, they are not entitled to participate in the election.
Similarly, members of the legislative councils are also not electors for the presidential election.
How are votes cast?
The votes are given on ballot paper in order of preferences for the candidates, least-voted of whom get eliminated one by one.
While the value of votes of every MP is fixed, the value of MLAs' votes differs based on their states' population.
How is the value of an MLA's vote calculated?
To calculate the value of each MLA's vote, the population of the state (1971 Census) is divided by the number of MLAs in the state multiplied by 1000. Let's take an example to understand this better.
Uttar Pradesh has a population of 8,38,49,905 according to the 1971 Census.
The state has 403 MLAs. This will be multiplied by 1000.
Now 8,38,49,905 is divided by 4,03,000= 208.6
So the value of each MLA's vote in UP would be 208.
When is the counting of votes held?
Results of the last Presidential elections
In 2017, President Kovind defeated former Lok Sabha speaker and opposition candidate Meira Kumar by nearly 3,34,730 value votes in the polls.