Who elects the President of India?

Who elects the President of India?

Candidates nominated to be 'India's first citizen' are required to fork over ₹15,000 as deposit and submit a signed list of 50 proposers and 50 seconders.

The President is elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of the elected members from Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and Lok Sabha (the House of the People), as well as the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of States and the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry, according to the Election Commission of India.

Each state will get a certain number of votes based on:

(a) every elected member of the legislative assembly of a State shall have as many votes as there are multiples of one thousand in the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by the total number of elected members of the Assembly;

Simply put, here's how state legislators' votes will be calculated:
(Total population of the state/No. of legislators in the assembly) / 1,000.

And the votes in the Parliament will be counted as such:
(Total no of votes assigned to the state legislators/Total No. of Parliamentarians )

(b) If after taking the said multiples of one thousand, the remainder is not less than five hundred, then the vote of each member shall be further increased by one;

The winner is the person who gets more votes than a certain quota, which is decided by adding up the votes polled for each candidate, dividing the sum by 2 and adding '1' to the quotient.

In case, no one gets more votes than the quota, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated. The ballot paper are distributed again for a 'second preference' and this is repeated until one candidate polls above the quota or until there is only candidate left.

The winner gets to be the President of the country for five years unless he resigns or is impeached.

Is the President eligible for election for a second term?

Yes, according to Article 57 of the Constitution, a President is eligible for re-election to that office.

Who elects the Vice-President of India?

The Vice-President is also elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of members from both Houses of Parliament. The election is in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferred vote and the voting is by secret ballot.

The ballot paper for electing the Vice President has two columns — one containing the name of the candidate and the second for marking the order of preference.

The winning candidate has to get a required quota of votes, which is 50% of the total valid votes plus 1. For instance, if there are 800 valid votes, the one who gets (800/2+1) i.e. 401 votes as the 'first preference' for Vice President will be the winner, and shall hold office for the next five years.