President Ram Nath Kovind's five-year term ends on 24 July. The process to file nominations for the presidential election began on Wednesday (15 June). The election is scheduled to be held on July 18 and the counting of votes will take place on July 21.
The nominations can be filed till June 29 and the scrutiny of the papers will take place on June 30. July 2 has been decided as the last date of withdrawing from the electoral battle.
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The opposition parties and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are yet to name their candidates to elect a new commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
We take a look at who all are in the race to be the next President of India and who has the advantage.
PROBABLE CANDIDATES
Led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the opposition held its first meeting on presidential polls on Wednesday. The BJP also reached out to several parties across the political spectrum. Party leader Rajnath Singh spoke to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Naveen Patnaik.
Kharge, Banerjee, Pawar and Yadav were also part of the opposition's meeting. NCP supremo Pawar had emerged as the top choice in the meet but he declined the proposal.
During the opposition's meeting, National Conference (NC) supremo Farooq Abdullah and former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi's names were also discussed as probable candidates for presidential polls, reported PTI.
It is quite clear that the BJP is not going to re-nominate Kovind. Rajnath Singh is still having talks with leaders from different parties, and BJP chief JP Nadda is also expected to do the same. But it is still not clear who is going to be the presidential candidate of the ruling party.
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The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) probables may include Kerala Governor Mohammad Arif Khan, former Jharkhand Governor and tribal leader from Odisha Draupadi Murmu, Chhattisgarh Governor and tribal leader Anusuiya Uikey, reported India Today. But, as we have seen in the past, the choice of candidate from the NDA can surprise all.
HOW IS THE PRESIDENT ELECTED?
The President is elected by an electoral college, which consists of the elected members of both houses of Parliament and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of all the states and also of NCT of Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry.
The electoral college is formed by 776 parliamentarians and 4,120 legislators and the total strength of the electoral college is 10,98,903 votes. The value of each vote for an MP is 708.
The value of the vote of each member of a state legislative assembly is calculated by dividing the population of the state by the total number of elected members of the assembly, and then further dividing the quotient by 1,000. If the remainder is 500 or more, then the value is increased by one.
The total value of votes of all members of each state assembly is worked out by multiplying the number of elective seats in the assembly by the number of votes for each member in the respective state.
The total value of votes of all the states added together is divided by the total number of elected members of Parliament (Lok Sabha 543+Rajya Sabha 233) to get the value of votes of each MP.
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NDA HAS THE ADVANTAGE
Of the 1,098,903 votes in the electoral college, the majority mark is 549,452 votes. UP has the highest number of votes, approximately 83,824, followed by Maharashtra and West Bengal.
The biggest vote share among regional parties is with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has 12 Lok Sabha and nine Rajya Sabha members, which comes to a vote strength of 8,496 and 6,372 respectively. The YSRCP has 22 MPs with a vote strength of 15,576 in the Lok Sabha and 4,248 votes in the Rajya Sabha, reported India Today.
BJP with the most number of MPs and MLAs has the edge, but if all regional parties and Congress come together, it could be a very close fight. Especially now, when the BJP has less number of seats in UP than during the last presidential election.
