Category Our Presidents

            Unlike the conventional ballot voting system, where the voter polls only for a single candidate of his choice, the presidential election follows the Single Transferable Vote system. According to this, each voter marks out his or her preference for the presidential candidate. If there are five candidates for example, the voter will give five preferences, making his or her most preferred candidate as the top choice, and accordingly for the rest of the candidates. It is mandatory to give a first preference, as the vote will be declared invalid in its absence. The voter can leave other preferences vacant.

            It is not just the most first preferences that decides the winner, but it’s the total number of valid votes that decides how many votes a candidate needs in order to be declared winner. This number is divided by two, and added to one to form the benchmark of winning. The total combined value of votes in the Presidential elections is 10, 98,903. It is divided as 5, 49,408 for MPs and 5, 49,495 for MLAs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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               The value of votes of MPs and MLAs are done after crucial evaluation. The number of votes of MLAs is decided by the total population of the state, divided by the number of elected members to the legislative assembly, and further divided by 1000. Until 2026, the population will be considered based on the 1971 census.

               Basically, electors’ votes are worth more or less, depending upon the post they hold. In general, MPs’ votes are worth more than MLAs’, and MLAs from bigger states count more than those from smaller ones.

            In the case of an MP, the vote value is decided by dividing the total value of votes of all MLAs of the whole country, divided by the total number of elected MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

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               The major difference between Indian presidential election and the legislative elections is that the President cannot be elected by the people directly.

               The President is indirectly elected by an electoral college comprising of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament, elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the states; including the national capital territory of Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

               To become the President of India, a candidate should have a valid nomination and he or she should meet set requirements. The conditions to be met are that the candidate should be a citizen of India, should be at least 35 years old; should be qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha, should be registered as an elector in any Parliamentary constituency in India, and should not hold any office of profit. Other than these requirements, it’s mandatory that the candidate’s nomination form be endorsed by at least 50 electors as proposers, and 50 electors as seconders. The candidate cannot be a member of either House of Parliament or of a House of the Legislature of any state, once he or she becomes the President.

               The elections for the President of India will be held in the Parliament House, New Delhi, and in all State Legislative Assembly Secretariats. The members cast their votes in a secret paper ballot. Once the vote quota is achieved by one candidate, the winner is announced. Tenure of President is five years.

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            B.D. Jatti became known in the national arena in 1968, when he became the Lieutenant Governor of Pondicherry. After a period of five years, in 1972, he was appointed as the Governor of Odisha.

           In 1974, Jatti assumed office as the fifth Vice President of India. He also held the Office of the President of India for a brief period, from 11th February 1977 to 25th July 1977, due to the sudden death of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, the then President of India. Jatti took the place of the President until the next President was elected, within six months.

          After holding the post of Acting President of India, he announced his retirement. Jatti continued to be in the limelight as a political observer. He died on 7th June 2002.

          B. D. Jatti was even called ‘Ordinary man with extraordinary thoughts’. His autobiography, ‘I’m My Own Model’, is very popular.

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             B.D. Jatti was the Acting President of India from 11th February to 25th July, 1977. Jatti was the fifth Vice President of India, serving from 1974 to 1979.

             Jatti was born in Bagalkot district of Karnataka on 10th September, 1913. After completing his graduation in law from Rajaram Law College, Kolhapur, B.D. Jatti did his legal practice as an advocate for a very short span of time in his home town, Jamkhandi.

             In 1940, while he was practicing law, he took part in municipal elections and became a Municipality member of Jamkhandi which now is a part of Mumbai. Later, he was elected as a member of the Jamkhandi State Legislature, and was appointed a minister in the government of the princely state of Jamkhandi.

              In 1958, he was elected as the Chief Minister of Mysore, and continued in this position till 1962. Jatti became more popular in 1968, when he became the Lieutenant Governor of Pondicherry.

                    In 1972, he was appointed as the Governor of Odisha. The subsequent year, in 1974, B.D. Jatti assumed the office of the Vice President of India. He was also the ex- officio Chairman, Rajya Sabha till 1979.

            India had three Acting Presidents – V.V. Giri, Mohammad Hidayatullah and B.D. Jatti. Among them V.V. Giri later became the 4th President of India.

            Mohammad Hidayatullah was the Chief Justice of India. He was the only person to serve twice as Acting President. He served as the Acting President of India from 20th July 1969 to 24th August 1969 and from 6th October 1982 to 31st October 1982.

           In December 1958, he acquired the position of Justice at the Supreme Court of India. He was the youngest person to be a judge in the Supreme Court. He served in this position for almost ten years, and on 25th February 1968, he took oath as the Chief Justice of India and remained on the seat till 16th December 1970. He served as the Vice President of India from August 1979 to August 1984.

          Mohammad Hidayatullah was born on 17th December 1905. He belonged to an upper class family. His father Khan Bahadur Hafiz Mohammed Wilayatullah was an Urdu poet.

          Mohammad Hidayatullah completed his primary education at the Government High School of Rajpur. He attended Morris College in Nagpur. He attended Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He was called to the Bar from Lincoln’s Inn when he was just 25 years old. He was awarded an LL.D. from University of the Philippines and a D. Litt. from the University of Bhopal. After graduation, Hidayatullah returned to India and enrolled as an advocate of the High Court of Central Provinces and Berar at Nagpur on 19th July 1930. He also taught Jurisprudence and Mahomedan Law in the University College of Law at Nagpur. He was appointed Government Pleader in the High Cour tat Nagpur. On 1st December 1958, he was elevated as a justice to the Supreme Court of India. In his time, he was the youngest judge of the Supreme Court of India. Later, Hidayatullah became the chief Justice of the India on 25th February, 1968.

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               Mukherjee was nominated as the presidential candidate of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in June, 2012.

               In order to file his nomination for the presidential poll, Mukherjee resigned from the government. He comfortably defeated P.A. Sangma winning 70 per cent of the electoral-college vote. Mukherjee was sworn in by the Chief Justice of India on 25th July 2012, becoming the first Bengali to hold the post of President of India.

               As the president of India, he promulgated the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013. He rejected 24 mercy pleas, including those of extremist militants like Ajmal Kasab.

               After completion of his tenure as the President, Pranab Mukherjee didn’t intend to stand for a second term, owing to his failing health.

               He is a multifaceted personality. He is an eminent politician as well as a great author. Mukherjee’s works narrates the political situations witnessed by the country over the years.

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                 Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was a  prominent Indian scientist who served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. He was the first scientist and the first bachelor to become the President of India.

                Dr. Kalam is also known as people’s President and the ‘missile man of India’. He played a pivotal role in the nation’s civilian space programme and military missile development. He was a great scientist and science administrator, mainly at the Defence Research and Development Organization Space Research Organization (ISRO).

                In the 1970s, he began making efforts to develop the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which was first launched on 20th September, 1993. In the late 10990s, he played a major role in conducting the Pokhran-II, a series of five nuclear bomb test explosions at the Indian Army’s Pokhran Test Range in May 1998.

                He was a recipient of several awards, including the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour. He died, apparently from a cardiac arrest, on 27th July, 2015.

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            In 1984, on Indira Gandhi’s request Narayanan entered into electoral politics. He won three successive general elections to the Lok Sabha in 1984, 1989 and 1991 from the Ottappalam constituency in Kerala.

            He also held various ministerial roles in the cabinet of Rajiv Gandhi. He held the portfolios of Planning, External Affairs, and Science and Technology at different times, between 1985 and 1989.

            As a Member of the Parliament, he resisted international pressure to tighten patent controls in India.

            In 1992, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh proposed Narayanan’s name for the office of the Vice President. He was elected as the Vice President of India on 21st August 1992, under the presidency of Shankar Dayal Sharma. He was unanimously elected to the post. He served as the ninth Vice President of India from 1992 to 1997.

            After completion of his tenure as Vice President, he was elected as the President of India and assumed the office on 25th July 1997. He served for five years and retired in 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            After finishing his higher studies in the London School of Economics, K.R. Narayanan returned to India. At that time he met Jawaharlal Nehru, who offered him a job in the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). Narayanan joined the IFS in 1949.

            During his service in the IFS, Narayanan worked as a diplomat in many foreign capitals such as Rangoon, Tokyo, London, Canberra, and Hanoi. He also served as India’s ambassador to Thailand, Turkey, and the People’s Republic of China. Narayanan’s tenure as Indian ambassador to China was the first such high level Indian diplomatic posting in that country after the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Narayanan retired from the IFS in 1978.

            In 1980, Indira Gandhi appointed K.R. Narayanan as India’s ambassador to the United States. Narayanan played a pivotal role in facilitating Indira Gandhi’s landmark visit to the United States in 1982, during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The visit played an important role in improving the strained relations between the two countries.

            Nehru, who had also been the Minister for External Affairs during his 16 years as PM, commented that K.R. Narayanan was “the best diplomat of the country”.