Polling for Prez poll today; TN’s value of vote 2nd highest

CHENNAI: Polling for the 16th Presidential election will be held on Monday in which members of the electoral college will vote for him.

In Tamil Nadu, the polling will be held at the Secretariat starting from 10 am on Monday.

Article 54 of the Indian Constitution speaks about the election of President, according to which the President is elected only by the elected members of Parliament and State legislative assemblies.

Nominated members and members of legislative councils of the states are not eligible to vote in the Presidential election.

However, unlike the usual elections the value of the single vote of MPs and MLAs is not one. Though the value of votes of all MPs is the same it varies for MLAs for every state and it is based on the population of the state.

According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the value of one vote of MPs for the 16th Presidential election is 700.

However, for MLAs the value of one vote is calculated by the formula Total population of the state divided by total number of elected members and the resulting value will once again be divided by 1,000.

Going by the formula, the ECI had fixed the value of one vote of an MLA in Tamil Nadu as 176. This is the second highest value in the country only next to Uttar Pradesh where the value of one vote of an MLA is 208.

In Jharkhand too the value of one vote of MLA is 176 and in Maharashtra it is 175 and in Bihar it is 173.

The voting procedure is also not the same for the Presidential election.

According to Article 55 of Indian Constitution, the election of the President is carried out by the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.

According to the system of voting, an MP or an MLA in a single vote can express his preference for any number of contesting candidates, meaning the electors can give preference for both Draupadi Murmu, the Presidential candidate proposed by the ruling BJP, and for Yashwant Sinha, the common candidate of opposition parties in their single vote.

The electors can mention first preference for the candidate whom they favour and can mention second preference for their next choice.