On Thursday 9th of June 2022, The Election Commission Of India announced the date of the Presidential Polls which is scheduled to be held on July 18, with the results to be declared on July 21 which will decide the next President of India.
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The election which will elect the next President of India will take place on July 18 with results to be declared for the same on July 21, as announced by the Election Commission of India on 9th June Thursday.
Along with the President, India will also get a new Vice President for which the election is scheduled to be held in the month of August.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its alliance partners are in a comfortable position to elect its candidate as the next President of the country.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is on the front foot because of its huge number of MPs in both the houses of parliament and in addition to that the NDA is ruling a good number of states in the country, from where a strong number of MLAs will vote.
How a President is elected:
For a person to get elected as the President of India he/she must fulfill some qualifications
. The person must be a citizen of India
. A person must be of 35 years of age, and he or she must be eligible to become a member of the house of people
. He /She should not have any criminal records
A president is elected by an electoral college in which members from both the Houses of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies of states, and the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry vote.
The electoral college consists of 776 members of Parliament out of which 543 are from the lower house and 233 from the upper house, as well as 4,809 members of state legislative assemblies.
The value of the electoral college is 10,86,431 votes. The value of the vote of each member remains. predetermined. For each MP, the value is fixed at 708.
For an MLA, the value is determined according to the population of the state, based on the 1971 census of the state. The value differs from state to state.
Being the state with the largest population, Uttar Pradesh carries the highest value of 208 among all the states. There are 403 MLAs in Uttar Pradesh who carry a value of 83,824 in total. Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to the parliament who have a total vote value of 56,640.
This means the overall value of votes of MPs and MLAs from the state is 1.4 lakh, giving them nearly 12.7 percent weightage.
After the filing of nominations by the candidates, a ballot paper is given to each voter in parliament and state assemblies to cast their votes. The ballot papers for the MPs are green in color and for the MLAs are pink in color.
Reports state that the vote value of MPs is likely to go down, from 708 to 700 due to the absence of an assembly in the state of J&K.
The Presidential election is slightly different from other elections because here the election is not won by a person who gets the highest votes but is won by the person who gets votes above a certain quota. If both candidates failed to get votes above the quota then the candidate with the lowest votes gets eliminated.
Five probable candidates who can become the next President of India:
The term of the current president Shri Ram Nath Kovind will end on July 24, 2022, and the new President will take oath on July 25, 2022.
Several speculations are going on regarding the successor of Ram Nath Kovind, but BJP is always unpredictable; they may take a decision out of the box and can name someone who is not in news as a Presidential candidate.
Still, let us look at five probable candidates who will set foot in the Rashtrapati Bhavan on July 25.
Arif Mohammed Khan
Arif Mohammad Khan, who is the current Governor of Kerala has had a long career in politics. He started his journey in politics with student politics, he emerged as a student leader at the Aligarh Muslim University and joined the Indian National Congress in 1980.
His rift with Rajiv Gandhi made him leave the congress in 1986 and after that, he joined and left various political parties.
Over the years, Khan has led an ideological war against orthodox Islamic rules and laws. He joined the BJP in 2004 and was appointed as the Governor of Kerala in 2019.
Most people tag BJP as an anti-Muslim party, but people must remember BJP elected the 1st Muslim President of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam back in 2002.
Therefore, speculations are on the rise that the BJP could choose Arif Mohammad Khan as their Presidential candidate.
It is being argued that choosing a Muslim for the post of President will help the party remove the tag of anti-muslim.
Even if Arif Mohammed Khan fits the bill of being a Muslim, the chances of the BJP being accepted by Muslims are slim even if Arif Mohammad Khan becomes the President of India.
Moreover, Khan has already earned enough hatred from Muslims for openly criticizing the radical beliefs present in Islamic society.
Khan may be the favorite of many BJP leaders because his stand on various issues matches the ideology of the party.
Even if Khan is elected as the next President of the country, it is unlikely Muslims who are rioting on the streets against Nupur Sharma will calm down. Khan may be also declared a non-Muslim by imams of Islam as it happened with Kalam in 2017.
Draupadi Murmu
There are speculations within the corridor of power that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking for a tribal face to take charge of the highest office in the country.
Muru maintains a good relationship not only with the Prime Minister and RSS but also with the NDA allies. Murmu comes from an Odisha-based tribe named Santal.
Picking Muru as the candidate for President will also help BJP in upcoming elections in six states, as well as the Lok Sabha polls of 2024. If Murmu becomes the President she could become the 1st tribal women President of India.
Anandiben Patel
The name of the former Gujarat Chief Minister is also making rounds to be the next President of India. But her chances are very slim as she belongs to Gujarat. The Prime Minister and the Home Minister are already from the state. Now if the President is elected from Gujarat it will lead to lots of controversies.
Thawar Chand Gehlot
Thawar Chand Gehlot is currently serving as the Governor Of Karnataka. He hails from Madhya Pradesh and comes from a backward tribe in the state. He also served as the union minister for Social Justice and Empowerment in the 1st term of Narendra Modi’s Government. As Madhya Pradesh is a state with lots of tribal voters, Gehlot may be made the next President of the country keeping the upcoming Madhya Pradesh elections in mind.
Anusuiya Uikey
Anusuiya Uikey is the Governor of Chattisgarh and a tribal leader. Anusuiya is a post-graduate in economics and also worked as a lecturer at a university. In 1985, she was elected to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly from the Damua constituency and after that, she didn’t have to look back.
She served as minister for Women and Child Development in Arjun Singh’s cabinet in the MP government.
She did a lot of work for the empowerment of tribal women, she made visits to more than 80 districts in 22 states, made a report, and submitted it to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
There are lots of positives for the BJP if Uikey is made the President because she is a woman as well as tribal and comes from the state of MP which is scheduled to take place in 2024.
