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The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) met recently to review the draft food security bill. Two issues have been reported to have gained prominence in their discussions – the exact number of poor families that are likely to be beneficiaries under the Food Security Act and reforming of the targeted public distribution system. On the issue of estimating poverty, it is reported that the Planning Commission has been asked to submit a report in three weeks on the number of (BPL) families that are likely to be legally entitled to food under the said Act. The Minister of Agriculture is reported to have said “It is up to them [Planning Commission] whether they base it [BPL list] on the Tendulkar Committee report or the earlier N.C. Saxena panel or the Wadhwa committee.” The estimation of poor persons in India involves two broad steps: (i) fixing a threshold or poverty line that establishes poverty, and (ii) counting the number of people below this line. Estimating these numbers is a contentious issue – ridden by debates around norms and parameters for defining poverty, methodology to estimate poverty, etc. The Planning Commission estimates the percentage and number of BPL persons separately in rural and urban areas from a large sample survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) which operates under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. In addition various government social sector schemes are targeted specifically at the poor and require the government to identify BPL beneficiaries. For this purpose the Ministry of Rural Development designs a BPL census and that is conducted by the States/UTs. The BPL census website gives data on BPL households for 2002 based on the poverty estimates for 1999-2000, by state, district and block. The targeted public distribution system was recently subjected to scrutiny by a Supreme Court appointed vigilance committee headed by Justice D P Wadhwa. Amongst many issues, the committee reported that “the PDS is inefficient and corrupt. There is diversion and black-marketing of PDS food grain in large scale. Subsidized PDS food grain does not reach the poor who desperately need the same. These poor people never get the PDS food grain in proper quantity and quality.” The two issues highlighted here are important to ensure that the proposed legislation on food security is not a leaky bucket in the making. As the draft food security bill is not in the public domain it is difficult to comment on how the government is thinking on length and breadth of issues that govern giving access to food security.
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.
Who elects the President?
The manner of election of the President is provided in Article 55 of the Constitution. Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies (MPs and MLAs) including elected representatives from the Union Territories (UTs) of Delhi and Puducherry form the electoral college, which elects the President. At least 50 elected representatives must propose a candidate, who must then be seconded by 50 other electors to run for the President's office. Members of Legislative Councils and the 12 nominated members of Rajya Sabha do not participate in the voting process.
The history behind having proposers and seconders To discourage the practice, candidates had to secure at least 10 proposers and seconders each to contest the elections from the 1974 election onwards. A compulsory security deposit of Rs 2,500 was also introduced. The changes were brought in through an amendment to the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Act, 1952. 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. |
How are the votes calculated?
The Presidential election uses a special voting to tally the votes. A different voting weightage is assigned to an MP and an MLA. The value of each MLA's vote is determined based on the population of their state and the number of MLAs. For instance, an MLA from UP has a value of 208 while an MLA from Sikkim has 7 (see Table 1). Due to a Constitutional Amendment passed in 2002, the population of the state as per the 1971 census is taken for the calculation.
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.
How will the numbers look in 2022?
In the 2017 Presidential elections, electors from 31 states and the UTs of Delhi and Puducherry participated. However, in 2019, with the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Reorganization Act, the number of states were reduced to 30. The J&K Assembly was dissolved as per the Act and a new legislature for the UT of J&K is yet to be reconstituted. UTs with legislatures were not originally part of the electoral college for the election of the President. The Constitution was amended in 1992 to specifically include the UTs of Delhi and Puducherry. Note that for MLAs from J&K to participate in future Presidential elections, a similar Constitutional amendment would be required to be passed by Parliament.
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.
Table 1: The value of votes of elected MLAs of different states at the 2017 Presidential Election
Name of State |
Number of Assembly seats |
Population (1971 Census) |
Value of vote of each MLA |
Total value of votes for the state (B x D) |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
Andhra Pradesh |
175 |
2,78,00,586 |
159 |
27,825 |
Arunachal Pradesh |
60 |
4,67,511 |
8 |
480 |
Assam |
126 |
1,46,25,152 |
116 |
14,616 |
Bihar |
243 |
4,21,26,236 |
173 |
42,039 |
Chhattisgarh |
90 |
1,16,37,494 |
129 |
11,610 |
Goa |
40 |
7,95,120 |
20 |
800 |
Gujarat |
182 |
2,66,97,475 |
147 |
26,754 |
Haryana |
90 |
1,00,36,808 |
112 |
10,080 |
Himachal Pradesh |
68 |
34,60,434 |
51 |
3,468 |
Jammu and Kashmir |
87 |
63,00,000 |
72 |
6,264 |
Jharkhand |
81 |
1,42,27,133 |
176 |
14,256 |
Karnataka |
224 |
2,92,99,014 |
131 |
29,344 |
Kerala |
140 |
2,13,47,375 |
152 |
21,280 |
Madhya Pradesh |
230 |
3,00,16,625 |
131 |
30,130 |
Maharashtra |
288 |
5,04,12,235 |
175 |
50,400 |
Manipur |
60 |
10,72,753 |
18 |
1,080 |
Meghalaya |
60 |
10,11,699 |
17 |
1,020 |
Mizoram |
40 |
3,32,390 |
8 |
320 |
Nagaland |
60 |
5,16,449 |
9 |
540 |
Odisha |
147 |
2,19,44,615 |
149 |
21,903 |
Punjab |
117 |
1,35,51,060 |
116 |
13,572 |
Rajasthan |
200 |
2,57,65,806 |
129 |
25,800 |
Sikkim |
32 |
2,09,843 |
7 |
224 |
Tamil Nadu |
234 |
4,11,99,168 |
176 |
41,184 |
Telangana |
119 |
1,57,02,122 |
132 |
15,708 |
Tripura |
60 |
15,56,342 |
26 |
1,560 |
Uttarakhand |
70 |
44,91,239 |
64 |
4,480 |
Uttar Pradesh |
403 |
8,38,49,905 |
208 |
83,824 |
West Bengal |
294 |
4,43,12,011 |
151 |
44,394 |
NCT of Delhi |
70 |
40,65,698 |
58 |
4,060 |
Puducherry |
30 |
4,71,707 |
16 |
480 |
Total |
4,120 |
54,93,02,005 |
|
5,49,495 |
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).
What is the number of votes required to win?
The voting for the Presidential elections is done through the system of single transferable vote. In this system, electors rank the candidates in the order of their preference. The winning candidate must secure more than half of the total value of valid votes to win the election. This is known as the quota.
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
= 543200 + 543231 +1 = 1086431 +1 = 543,216
2 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.
The only President of India to win unopposed |