How is President of India Elected

The provisions of the election of India's President is laid down in Article 54 of the Constitution. The President and Vice-President Election Act 1952 led to the establishment of the constitutional provisions. To be more precise, Article 52 to 62, 65, 71, and 72 in the constitution are enshrined with the election system of the President of  India.

In India President is not elected directly by the people they are elected by an indirect method called Electoral College following the system of proportional representation utilizing a single transferable vote system. MPs and MLAs vote based on parity and uniformity values.

All MPs and MLAs have a certain number of votes, a lengthy calculation designates the value of voters. 

Qualification of Candidate for the post of  President of India

• A person who is not a citizen of India is not eligible.
• A person must have completed the age of 35.
• A person must be qualified for election as a member of the House of the People.
• A person must hold a government(center or state) office of profit.
• A person is eligible for election as president if he/she is holding the office of President or Vice-President
• A person is eligible for election as president if he/she is holding the office of the Governer.
• A person is eligible for election as president if he/she is holding the office of Union/State Minister.

During the presidential election, one voter can cast only one vote. While the MLA votes may vary state to state, the MP votes always remain constant.

    

To maintain the proportionality between the values of the votes, the following formula is used:

Value of vote of an MLA = total no. of the population of the particular state / no. of elected MLAs of that state divided by 1000  

The number of total value of the MPs votes must be equal the total value of the MLAs vote to maintain the balance between State and Union.

The candidate reaching the winning quota or exceeding it is the winner. The formula used is 'Winning quota = total number of poll / no. of seats + 1'

During the presidential election, the voter cast his vote in favor of his first preferred candidate. However, in case the first preference candidate does not touch the winning quota, the vote automatically goes to the second preference. The first preferred candidate with the lowest vote is eliminated and votes in his/her favor are transferred to the remaining candidates.

In a large country like India, it is important to have fair and transparent elections. If President were to be elected directly, it would become very complicated. It would, in fact, be a disaster because the public doesn't have the absolute clarity of how the president-ship runs or if the candidate fits the people of a president.