Race To Raisina: From Politics to Mathematics

In July this year, largest democracy of the world, India is set to elect its President. The President of India is the head of the state as well as the supreme commander of the armed forces. Indian President, unlike US President, holds no real power except some discretionary powers. Since the time of making the Constitution of India, thinkers, politicians and constitutional experts have been criticizing the office of President as well as the manner of election to the office. President of India has to act in accordance with the aid and advice of the council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister of India. It means real power is exercised by the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers and not the President himself. This is also one of the reasons for criticizing and calling the Post of President of India a mere Rubber stamp. Let's take a look at the whole issue of Presidential Election of India, from Politics to Mathematics. 

The Politics of Presidential Election

The ruling NDA and Group of opposition parties headed by Congress are the major contenders for the Presidential elections. Most of NDA's vote share comes from Loksabha where it enjoys a good majority but the same party lags in Rajya Sabha. Before February 2017 elections in 5 major states including Uttar Pradesh, BJP cadres felt skeptic about winning the upcoming Presidential election, but after these state election results where the party got a whopping victory by pocketing 4 out of the 5 coupled with the landslide win in UP fueled much-needed confidence among the saffron cadre. 

Needless to say, Uttar Pradesh is an important variable as far as Lok Sabha and Presidential elections are concerned. The reason being is the highest number of Loksabha and Rajya Sabha seats and highest value of votes that MLAs in UP have for the Presidential election. For Congress and other groups of opposition parties, state elections of 2017 was a major setback.

Recently both the major camps announced their Presidential nominees. Bihar governor and two times Rajya Sabha member Ram Nath Kovind was picked to run the race on behalf of the NDA and Meira Kumar, a former diplomat, and a Loksabha Speaker was nominated by the opposition camp. Well, it is quite evident that both the candidates belong to Dalit community. This is a clear indication made by both the camps in playing the Dalit card for their eventual 2019 Loksabha elections. During last 3 years of NDA government, Dalit has been attacked by vigilantes and outfits affiliated to the ruling party in various parts of India. By nominating a Dalit, the ruling party anticipates to pacify the Dalit vote bank. On the other hand, the opposition is planning to reap the anti-incumbency and wisely pocket the necessary votes to win from the prevailing Dalit frustrations on the ruling parties. Will the Presidential election determine who more Dalit is? Certainly not, but history teaches us that caste is one of the unavoidable variables in Indian Politics. 

The founding fathers of Indian Constitution and several commissions in the post-independence era have discussed in detail about the position of President of India. Despite the wider understanding of a politically neutral and an intellectual to hold the office, it has been politicized for the narrowly minded pursuits of gaining political power and mileage. In 2002, to pacify the Muslim voters’ post-Gujrat riot, NDA nominated APJ Abdul Kalam as their presidential candidate. Though it was the only presidential election where both BJP and Congress favored a common candidate and the left fielded their own. 

Even though names like M.S. Swaminathan, Gopalkrishna Gandhi was rumored to be the front-runners, it was finally these candidates. Again an example where Caste outweighs intellectualism. 

However, for the first time in the Presidential election, Election Commission has forbidden the political politics from issuing the whip to their MPs and MLAs. This could be the game changer, as MPs and MLAs are now independent to vote the candidate of their choice, irrespective of party’s choice. The election outcome would surely surprise everyone in either way. 

The Mathematics of Presidential Election

The Presidential Election of India involves intricate mathematics and politics. Unlike the election of Members of Parliament, where people directly vote from their respective constituencies with a first past the post system, the President of India is indirectly elected by an Electoral College, consisting of elected Members of Parliament, elected Members of Legislative Assemblies of the states and elected Member of Legislative Assemblies of Union Territories of Delhi and Pondicherry in a proportional representation method. Bad news for Sachin fans is that Sachin cannot cast his vote during the Presidential Elections.

The value of a vote cast by MLAs and MPs are determined by performing a mathematical process. Let’s try to understand this. The value of the vote of an MLA of a state is determined by dividing the population of the state with the number of the elected MLAs in multiple of thousands. For example, the population of the state of Chhattisgarh is 11,637,494 (As per 1971 census) this is divided by the number of elected MLAs in the state i.e. 90 with multiple of 1000, so the formula becomes (11,637,494) / (90*1000). Hence the value of each vote of MLAs of Chhattisgarh for the presidential election will be 129.  

The value of the vote of MLAs in every state differs accordingly. The state with the higher population like Uttar Pradesh will have the largest share in Presidential Election as the value of their votes will be higher(83,824) comparing to less populous or smaller states like Sikkim (224). Now you may have understood why UP elections were important for every political party. The interesting fact is that MLAs of states like Sikkim, Mizoram Nagaland have values of their votes as meager as 7, 8 and 9. 5,49,474 is the value of votes cast by the 4,120 MLAs of Indian States. Now, these MLAs votes are used to determine the value of the vote of MPs.

The total number of elected MPs in Loksabha (543) and Rajya Sabha (233) is 776. The values of the vote of each MP is equal and is determined by dividing the total values of MLAs vote with 776 i.e. total number of elected MPs. Hence 708 is the value of the vote of each MP in Presidential Election in India. Because of such a high value of votes assigned to MPs in Presidential Election, BJP stalwarts Yogi Adityanath, Manohar Parrikar and Keshav Prasad Maurya etc. have not yet resigned from their respective houses of parliament, even after assuming the office of Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers. Overall MPs have 5,49,408 vote value. Taking altogether the values of MLAs and MPs, it is whopping 10,98,882 on which the fate of Candidate is calculated. So a winning candidate is required to score 1 more than 549,441 values of the vote if it the race is between 2 candidates. 

Indian Politics is a khichri (mixture) of caste, class, religion, and region etc. Starting from the Panchayat elections, every single election in India must satisfy an election equation. The presidential election is not an exception. 

Since the very first presidential election to the 14th, India has seen many intellectuals and hopefuls as Presidents, Dr. Radhakrishnan, Giani Zail Singh, K.R.Narayanan, and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam to name a few. Who on many occasions proved that the office of President is not a mere rubber stamp. And there were exceptions to them, as many did nothing to change, stayed a mere rubber stamp.

Since Independence, India as a sovereign nation has sailed 67 years with Paramount pride. I am eagerly waiting to see who our next president is, will he/she act a President or Rubber Stamp.

Harishankar Nath is a Delhi based Journalist.