Many of us don’t know about the full process of elections in India. In today’s topic, we will cover all the election process in India with examples. Every voter in India should know this process of the election before giving the vote. Before knowing about the process of election in India, we should know about the structure of the Government of India.
Table of Contents
Government of India
Our constitution of India follows the system of federalism. According to the federal system of government, there are two types of government in India: the Central Government and the state government.
Central government
The central government is made up of two houses, the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, which is also known as the upper house and lower house of the Central Government. Every law made by the Central Government has to pass from these two houses by taking the consent of the President of India. After the consent of the president of India, this law is implemented throughout India with the help of the prime minister of India because he is the person who has the duty to announce all the important laws made by the central government in India.
Parliament of India
All the members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are known as the parliament of India. These two houses sit in the Parliament House which is known as Sansad Bhawan to make the laws for India.
There are a minimum of three sessions of parliament every year. Our prime minister of India gave the advice to the president of India to summon both the houses for sessions of parliament.
Rajya Sabha
According to our Indian constitution, there can be a maximum of 250 seats in the Rajya Sabha. Currently, there are 245 members in the Rajya Sabha.
Lok Sabha
Lok Sabha is known as the lower house of our parliament and the maximum number of seats in Lok Sabha is 552. Currently, there are 545 members in Lok Sabha.
State Government
The state government is made up of MLAs, Chief Minister and Governor of the state.
After knowing about the parliament and our government of India, now let’s move to our real topic: the process of elections and how these members are elected?
Types of elections in India
There are mainly three types of elections in India;
- Lok Sabha election
- Rajya Sabha elections
- State assembly elections
Lok Sabha elections
Lok Sabha elections occur after every five years. The members of Lok Sabha are directly elected by the people of the nation with the help of direct voting.
We know that currently there are 545 seats in Lok Sabha in which there are 2 nomination seats. Basically, nomination seats are filled by the president of India by appointing two Anglo Indians in Lok Sabha. If the President of India thinks that the Lok Sabha is not representing any Anglo Indians, in that situation the President of India can nominate two Anglo Indians to be part of the Lok Sabha. The Anglo Indians on these two seats are nominated without any elections. Other 543 seats of Lok Sabha are filled by direct voting.
These 543 seats are divided between all the states by taking the reference of the population. These number of seats are:
According to the number of these seats, the candidates give their names to fill these seats and represent their parties. A person who does not represent any party can also fill the form for the nomination of these seats. After the elections on the seats, any party who won the seats more than 50% can form the government. The president of India appoints the leader of the winning party as prime minister of India or the winning party can elect the prime minister by voting.
Rajya Sabha elections
There are a total of 250 seats in the Rajya Sabha in which 12 seats are nominated by the President of India and the other 238 members are elected by our MLAs.These 12 nominal seats are filled by the person belonging to different fields. For instance, Sachin Tendulkar and actress Mrs Rekha were elected as members of the Rajya Sabha in 2012.
The elections of the Rajya Sabha are totally different from the elections of the Lok Sabha because the members of the Rajya Sabha are elected indirectly by the public. Our MLAs was chosen by us with direct voting elect the members of Rajya Sabha through voting. The MLAs use the single transferable vote system to nominate the members in Rajya Sabha.
The seats of Rajya Sabha are divided between every State on the basis of the population of states. Every member of the Rajya Sabha holds the office for 6 years. In the Rajya Sabha, the elections on one-third of seats occur after every 2 years.
Proportional representation through the single transferable vote
Our Rajya Sabha is known as the permanent house it means it cannot be dissolved fully. The period of one member of the Rajya Sabha is 6 years and after every 2 years, the Rajya Sabha elects 1/3 new members after the retirement of the old ⅓ members who have completed their tenure. And this process continues.
It means the election in Rajya Sabha takes place only on the seats on which the members have completed their tenure of 6 years.
To understand the voting system in Rajya Sabha we will take the example of one state for understanding. There are a total of 90 seats in the state legislative assembly in Haryana. It means Haryana has 90 MLAs.
Haryana has 5 seats in the Rajya Sabha. So now let’s suppose that there are 3 seats available in Rajya Sabha from Haryana. To win a seat, a person needs the support of MLAs.
To calculate how many votes a person needs, there is a formula.
In a situation, if there were only one seat available for Rajya Sabha from Haryana, the election will be simple as who will get higher votes from MLA will win.
But in a situation where there is more than one vacancy for Rajya Sabha, the value of one vote of MLA =100
And if Haryana has 90 MLAs, then the total number of votes will be:
Now, to calculate the number of votes a candidate needs to win:
There is no EVM machine for or the election of Rajya Sabha members. Let’s suppose that there are five candidates for the three seats of Rajya Sabha from Haryana.
During the election of Rajya Sabha, is MLA get a paper on which there will be names of all the five candidates in series. The MLA has to give the preference by giving the numbers to the candidate. For example, if an MLA Needs to give the first preference to candidate D, then he would write 1 in front of his name. After that, he will prefer other MLA’s like that in series.
Now, this process will be followed by all 90 MLAs and after the first round, the result for the first seat will be declared on the basis of these preferences. A candidate who will get more preferences will be chosen as a member of Rajya Sabha on one seat.
Round 2
The candidates who will get the least votes will be out before round 2. After that, the second candidate will be chosen by checking how many preferences he got for the second position.
State assembly elections
These elections occur in every state to elect the MLAs directly with votes. Similar to the seats of Lok Sabha, the seats for MLA are also fixed. The candidates fight for these seats of MLA from different parties or without any party. The election of MLA occurs every five years. Every state has different timings for the election of MLAs. It means if there are elections for the seats of MLA in Himachal Pradesh, it does not mean the same elections are happening in Gujarat.
After the result of these seats in the state, the party who wins the election by taking the seats of more than 50% make their state government in that particular state. These winning MLA choose the chief minister of the state. Now the question arises that what if the party does not win with a majority?
In this situation, the party that won the maximum seats has the option to make a bond with another party and form a coalition form of government. Under the coalition form of government, more than one party mixed with each other to form a new government. We have written an article on the coalition government. You can check that article.
Conclusion
This is the process of election in India. We should definitely give the vote because it is our constitutional right and also it is our duty that we should choose an honest politician for our future. Because by choosing a candidate through what we choose that person for our next 5 years.