July 16 , 2017
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• President Pranab Mukherjee’s tenure will end on July 24 this year and the election for the new president has to be held before that date. The election to choose 14th President of India will be held on July 17, 2017.
• On June 7, the then Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi released the notification for presidential election.
• Ram Nath Kovind, former Governor of Bihar , is contesting on behalf of the ruling National Democratic Alliance.
• Meira Kumar, the former Lok Sabha speaker, is contesting as a common candidate for opposition parties – 18 parties including Congress
• Only these two are in the electoral race for the presidency. Presidential Election in India has not always been a direct contest between two candidates from the ruling and Opposition camps.
• MLAs and MPs across the country will vote directly and elect a new president.
Election Method
• The electoral college for choosing the President consists of 4,896 voters. While the Lok Sabha has 543 voters and the Rajya Sabha has 233, the overwhelming majority come from state assemblies — MLAs(4,120 voters).
• Vote of each MP and MLA carries a certain value. The vote weight of a member depends on the size and population of their representative state.
MLA’s vote value
• In the case of MLAs, the vote value is calculated by dividing total population of the state by the number of elected members to the Legislative Assembly, further divided by 1000.
• Thus, Total value of votes by a state’s MLA can be calculated by multiplying their vote value by number of constituencies in the state.
• The population data is taken from the 1971 Census. The total value of votes of MLAs in the election is 5,49,495.
MP’s vote value
• In the case of an MP, the vote value is decided by dividing the total value of votes of all MLAs (5,49,495) of the whole country, divided by the total number of elected MPs in Lower House (Lok Sabha) and Rajya Sabha (Upper House) (totally 776).
• At present, the vote value of each MP is fixed at 708, and total value of votes of MPs is 5,49,408.
Value of total votes
• The total value of votes in the election is 10,98,903 — 5,49,408 for MPs and 5,49,495 for MLAs.
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