The other side -2 : Presidential Elections

Have a look at the cartoon on the right. This is what the Indian President is all about! Still, the election creats a lot of interest, as if, the entire destiny of India hinges on the president. This is nothing but a media celebration. It makes no difference whoever comes to this post. The chair is much smaller than that of the party president's!

Having harped on this subject just take a look at the method of electing the President of India.

" India's Electoral College that will vote for a new president July 19 is made up of 4,896 members - 776 members of parliament and 4,120 members of the state assemblies. Between them they have 10,97,012 votes and the winning candidate needs at least 50 per cent of these.

How do numbers stack up?

• The ruling United Progressive Alliance, in its present form, has 450,555 votes or 41.07 per cent of the total. Of this, the Congress alone has 331,855 votes, or 30.3 per cent of the total.
• The allies - among them the Trinamool Congress and the DMK - have 11.04 per cent of the vote.
• The Samajwadi Party, which supports the government from outside, has 6.34 per cent of the vote.
• The Trinamool Congress has 4.40 per cent of the vote.
• If the Trinamool and the Samajwadi Party vote with the government, this will give it 47.41 per cent of the ballots - a shortfall of a mere 2.59 per cent.
• Should these two parties not vote with the government, it will be short by 13.33 per cent.
• The National Democratic Alliance has 27.7 per cent of the votes, of which the Bharatiya Janata Party has 21.2 per cent.
• The Left has 4.7 per cent of the vote.
• Among the other parties, the BSP has 3.98 per cent of the votes and the AIADMK 3.3 per cent.
• In the "others" category are 10.1 per cent of the votes.

To calculate the number of voters each legislator represents, the total population of the state is divided by the number of legislatures and then divided by 1,000.

For example, each member of Uttar Pradesh assembly represents 208 voters, while a member from Sikkim represents seven voters.

The value of vote of each MP is uniform at 708."

What is the difference the incumbent president made to our desitiny? There were only controversy surrounding the president. This president was also personally picked by the party president, supported by a Maharashtra based political party to uphold "marata manoos". I am not sure if the leader of that party is satisfied with the performance of this Marata Lady. What difference she made to the "Marata Manoos" needs an in-dept debate. 


In earlier days, the party president used to instruct one of her/his "servants" to go sit in the 'gaddi'. Now that there is no clear majority for the party, this does not work so easily. The "servant" has to stand for an election, though by and large a farce, to ascend to the gaddi.

Meanwhile, another presidential election is hotting up in another part of the world. To elect the President of USA.   The president is all powerful in USA and he is the one who drives the nation to right or wrong direction. Of course there is a parliament to keep a tab on the President. American president is elected by through an Electroal college that was elected by the citizens of the country.

Mitt Romney is the republican candidate and Barak Obama got the second chance to try for the second chance.As the real fight is raging there, we are so steeped in discussions and speculations over a fake election!!