BJP Has An Edge In Presidential Election

In the aftermath of its landslide victory in UP and Uttarakhand and formation of governments in Goa and Manipur, the saffron party is highly optimistic about getting its candidate elected to the highest executive post.

- Dr Anil Singh

With present incumbent to the office of President of India Pranab Mukherjee’s tenure in office coming to an end in July 2017 and election of the next president likely to be held early July this year in all probability, flurry of hectic activities is gathering momentum in political parties. In the aftermath of its landslide victory in UP and Uttarakhand and formation of governments in Goa and Manipur, the BJP is hopeful of getting its candidate elected to the highest executive post and concurrently non-NDA opposition parties are also making efforts to give ‘tough’ fight to the NDA by nominating its candidate.

The procedure enshrined in the Constitution of India envisages that president is elected by an electoral college comprising the elected members of both houses of Parliament, the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the 29 states and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry. As of 2017, the Electoral College comprises 776 MPs and 4120 MLAs. The total strength of Electoral College is 10, 98,882 votes. Halfway mark is 5,49,442 votes.

The nomination of a candidate for election to the office of the President must be subscribed by at least 50 electors as proposers and 50 electors as seconders. The election is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote method. The voting takes place by secret ballot as provided by Article 55 of the Constitution.

BJP’s stakes

After its stunning performance in the recently held poll to the five state assemblies, stakes for the BJP in electing its own candidate to the highest executive office have become very high.Many names and theories are doing the rounds in BJP circles about who will occupy the top post. From a Dalit to a woman and a tribal to a RSS choice; the guessing game is far from over.