Manner of election of President

Article 44, Draft Constitution of India 1948

(1) As far as practicable, there shall be uniformity in the scale of representation of the different States at the election of the President.

(2) For the purpose of securing such uniformity the number of votes which each elected member of Parliament and of the Legislature of each State is entitled to cast at such election shall be determined in the following manner :-

(a) Every elected member of the Legislature 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 Legislature;

(b) If, after taking the said multiples of one thousand, the remainder is not less than five hundred, then the vote of each member referred to in sub-clause (a) of this clause shall be further increased by one;

(c) Each elected member of either House of Parliament shall have such number of votes as may be obtained by dividing the total number of votes assigned to the members of the Legislatures of the States under sub-clauses (a) and (b) of this clause by the total number of such members, fractions exceeding one-half being counted as one and other fractions being disregarded.

(3) The election of the President shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and the voting at such election shall be by secret ballot.

Explanation.—In this article, the expression “the Legislature of a State” means, where the Legislature is bicameral, the Lower House of the Legislature, and the expression “population” means the population as ascertained at the last preceding census.

Article 55, Constitution of India 1950

(1) As far as practicable, there shall be uniformity in the scale of representation of the different States at the election of the President.

⁠(2) For the purpose of securing such uniformity among the States inter se as well as parity between the States as a whole and the Union, the number of votes which each elected member of Parliament and of the Legislative Assembly of each State is entitled to cast at such election shall be determined in the following manner:—

(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 the elected members of the Assembly;

(b) if, after taking the said multiples of one thousand, the remainder is not less than five hundred, then the vote of each member referred to in sub-clause (a) shall be further increased by one;

(c) each elected member of either House of Parliament shall have such number of votes as may be obtained by dividing the total number of votes assigned to the members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States under sub-clauses (a) and (b) by the total number of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament, fractions exceeding one-half being counted as one and other fractions being disregarded.

⁠(3) The election of the President shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and the voting at such election shall be by secret ballot.

Explanation. — In this article, the expression “population” means the population as ascertained at the last preceding census of which the relevant figures have been published.

Draft Article 44 was debated in the Constituent Assembly on 13 December 1948. It laid down the procedures related to the election of the President of India.

The Chairman of the Drafting Committee pointed out that in order to achieve ‘uniformity in the scale of representation of the different States’, the Draft Article adopted the proportional representation through single transferable vote approach. He noted that if each member of the electoral college was given one vote, that would not be truly representative.

There was opposition to the proportional system that the Draft Article put forth. A member moved an amendment to remove the mention of proportional representation in the Draft Article. She believed that proportional representation was generally used in contexts where there was a ‘multiple-member constituency’ – something that was not the case for Presidential elections. Another member noted that proportional representation system with a single transferable vote, was historically used for elections with more than one seat – it would not be practical to adopt this system for the election of a President.

In response to the general objections to the proportional representation system, the Chairman of the Assembly argued that there were no better alternatives. Elections through direct majority would not take into account the voices of the minority communities and parties and separate electorates was a system that the Constitution had rejected. The ‘proportional representation’ system was the only guarantee against majority dominance.

The Constituent Assembly adopted the Draft Article on 13 December 1948 with minor amendments.