Discussing the Indian Presidential Election of 2017

The 2017 Indian presidential election was held on 17th July 2017, where two candidates, supported by the two largest political alliances, contested the election to become the president of India. The erstwhile President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee’s term in office, was about to expire on the 24th of July 2017, and he had declined to seek re-election; hence two new candidates were fielded by the two strongest political alliances of our country.

Process of Selection

The President of India is elected indirectly. Members who are elected in both houses of the parliament: The Lok Sabha and The Rajya Sabha, form the electoral college, which then elects a candidate in the presidential election. The electoral college also includes the elected legislative members of all 28 states of India and legislative assembly members of union territories like Delhi, Puducherry, Jammu, Kashmir, etc. The electoral college comprises a total of 776 MPs and 4,120 MLAs. The total number of the members of the electoral college are combinedly allowed to cast a total of 1,098,903 votes, and the candidate who attained a majority of more than 50% votes out of the total polled votes gets declared as the President of India.

Electoral College Composition

The electoral college comprised of two different alliances, which were as follows:

• NDA:  The National Democratic alliance was the strongest alliance which consisted of political parties like BJP, SHS, TDP, LJSP, SAD, RLSP, AINRC, PMK, and some other parties. NDA alliance had a majority stronghold in nearly both the houses of the Parliament. The election of July 2017 was near, and despite being the strongest alliance, NDA was still short of the majority by about 25,000 votes. NDA expected to rely on other parties to help them cross the majority figure.
• UPA: The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was spearheaded by the INC (Indian National Congress) and also consisted of many other parties like AITC, CPI (M), NCP, SP, BSP, AAP, RJD, and some other regional political parties. The UPA was not a strong alliance as it had a combined share of 39% members in both houses of the parliament constituting a part of the electoral college, way lesser than the 50% or more majority mark to win the presidential election.

Candidates and Result

• Ramnath Kovind: The NDA alliance backed Ramnath Kovind to become The President of India. Ramnath Kovind was born on the 1st of October, 1945, in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. He was a former member of the Rajya Sabha for Uttar Pradesh from 1994 to 2006. He was also the Governor of Bihar from 2015 to 2017. His candidacy for the Indian presidential election was announced on 19th June 2017.
• Meira Kumar: The UPA backed Meira Kumar to become The President of India. Meira Kumar was born on 31st March 1945 in Patna, Bihar. She was a multiple-time member of parliament, and she was union minister from 2004 to 2014. She was also the 15th speaker of the Lok sabha. Her tenure as a speaker began in 2009 and ended in 2014. Her candidacy for the Indian presidential election was announced on 22nd June 2017

The 2017 Indian presidential election resulted in a thumping win for Ramnath Kovind after the votes were counted on 20th July 2017. Ramnath Kovind secured a total of 7,02,044 votes, comprising 65.65% of the total votes of the Electoral College. In comparison, Meira Kumar managed to secure 3,67,314 votes, including 34.35% of the total votes of the electoral college. Ramnath Kovind was administered the oath of office as The 14th President of India by the Chief Justice of India, Jagdish Singh Kheher, on the 25th of July 2017, at the Central Hall of the Parliament House in New Delhi.

Indian President List

A total of 13 people were elected as The President of India before Ramnath Kovind took oath as the 14th President of India. The list of the Former presidents of India is given below:

• Dr Rajendra Prasad ( 1950-1962)
• Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1962- 1967)
• Zakir Hussain ( 1967-1969)
• V.V Giri (1969-1974)
• Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed ( 1974- 1977)
• Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1977- 1982)
• Zail Singh ( 1982- 1987)
• Ramaswamy Venkataraman (1987- 1992)
• Shankar Dayal Sharma (1992- 1997)
• K R Narayanan (1997-2002)
• APJ Abdul Kalam ( 2002-2007)
• Pratibha Patil ( 2007-2012)
• Pranab Mukherjee(2012- 2017)

Conclusion

In this blog, we learned about the 2017 Indian presidential election and the election process involved in selecting The President of India, the candidates who fought the 2017 presidential election, its results, and a complete list of former Presidents of India.