The Election Commission has announced the dates for the Presidential elections slated to be held this year with President Pranab Mukherjee’s term coming to an end on July 24. This year the polling will be on July 17 and counting on July 20, announced the Election Commission (EC). Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the Election Commission will issue a notification in this regard on June 14, 2017.

The Election Commission is mandated to ensure that the election to the office of the President of India, which is the highest elective office in the nation, must be a free and fair election and the Commission is taking all necessary steps for discharging its Constitutional responsibility,” chief election commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi told reporters on Wednesday.

As per norms the President will be elected by an electoral college which includes elected members of both houses of Parliament as well as elected members of state legislative assemblies including Delhi and Puducherry. Nominated members are not part of the electoral college. Here are a few decisions that have been taken by the EC:

• No elections will be held for the 13 vacant seats (10 state Assembly seats, 2 Lok Sabha seats and 1 Rajya Sabha seat) across legislative assemblies till the polling process ends.
• The 21 members of the legislative assembly in Delhi, who belong to the Aam Aadmi Party and are under EC scrutiny in an office-of-profit case, will also be allowed to vote unless a decision on their case is taken before the polling date.
• After the controversy of some votes being invalidated by the use of an “unauthorized” pen in the Rajya Sabha polls in Haryana last year, the EC will be supplying specific pens for marking of preferences during the Presidential polls. These pens will be issued at the polling stations by the designated officials along with the ballot paper. Use of any other pen will constitute an invalid vote.

Prominent Names For the Post of President of India

• Ram Nath Kovind, the Governor of Bihar, was announced as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA's candidate for the post of President of India by BJP president Amit Shah on 19 June 2017. Kovind is a leader and a politician from the BJP. Kovind filed his nomination for the election on 23 June 2017
• Meira Kumar, the former Speaker of Lok Sabha, was announced as the Indian National Congress(INC)-lead opposition's candidate for the post of President of India, after a meeting held on the 22 June 2017.

The Expected Tally

Here are a few interesting facts for you about the Presidential elections:

The electoral College which elects the president constitutes 4,896 legislators.

Of the 4,896 legislators, 776 are Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members and 4,120 MLAs.

All MPs have an equal vote value of 708.

The vote value of MLAs depends on the population of the state.

The presidential polls has a total of 11,04,546 votes.

The BJP-led NDA’s tally stands at 5.38 lakh votes of the total 11,04,546 votes of the presidential polls. The crucial support of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP helped the NDA to cross the majority mark. The BJP is also hopeful of getting support in the oncoming elections from both the factions of the AIADMK, which is in power in Tamil Nadu and K Chandrashekar Rao’s Telugu Desam Party.

Ramnath Kovind Profile   BJP (NDA)             Meira Kumar Profile INC (UPA)

 Selection process

The president is elected by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of parliament, the elected members of the Legislative assemblies of the 29 states and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry. As of 2017, the electoral college comprises 776 MPs and 4120 MLAs. The total strength of Electoral college is 10,98,882 votes. Halfway mark is 5,49,442 votes. After state assembly elections and by-polls of 2017, NDA is short of nearly 20,000 votes

The nomination of a candidate for election to the office of the President must be subscribed by at least 50 electors as proposers and 50 electors as seconders. The election is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the Single transferable vote method. The voting takes place by secret ballot. The manner of election of President is provided by Article 55 of the Constitution