CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 79 of 120

Correct — B, Proportional Representation and Single Transferable Vote System. Article 55 lays it down in those words — the election of the President is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, and the voting is by secret ballot. Each elector ranks the candidates in order of preference on one ballot. A candidate must reach a quota of more than half the total value of valid votes; if nobody does on first preferences, the lowest candidate is eliminated and the second preferences on those ballots are transferred until someone crosses it. The electors are not all equal in weight either: under Article 54 the electoral college is the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies, with Delhi and Puducherry added later, and each vote is given a value worked out from population so that the states as a whole balance the Union Parliament.

• (a)Proportional Representation — Incomplete rather than wrong, and the option the careless candidate takes. Proportional representation is a family of methods, and the Constitution names the member of that family it wants — by means of the single transferable vote. Option (d), the list system, is another member of the same family, which is exactly why naming the method matters.
• (c)First-Past-the-Post System — This is how India elects the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies — the candidate with the most votes wins, whether or not that is a majority. The presidential election deliberately does not work that way; it requires a candidate to cross a quota.
• (d)List System — In a list system voters choose a party list and seats are shared out in proportion to the party's vote. It is used in many countries for multi-member legislatures and in none of India's elections. It also cannot elect a single office-holder, which is what a presidential election does.

The electoral college for the President is set out in Article 54 and the method in Article 55. Elected members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha vote, and so do elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies; nominated members do not, and members of the State Legislative Councils do not vote at all. The value of a legislator's vote is calculated so that the value of all the assembly votes taken together equals the value of all the parliamentary votes, and the state population figure used for that calculation is the one from the 1971 census, frozen there until figures from the first census taken after 2026 are published.

The trap is that options (a) and (b) are both true statements about the same election, and only one is the full description the Constitution uses. A second point worth being honest about: with a single post to fill, nothing is really shared out in proportion, and the single transferable vote here behaves as a preferential majority system. The Constitution nonetheless uses the phrase proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, and an exam key follows the constitutional text. The same method elects the Vice-President and fills Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council seats, where more than one seat is at stake and the proportionality is real.

• Article 55 prescribes proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, with voting by secret ballot.
• Article 54 fixes the electoral college — elected members of both Houses of Parliament and elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies.
• Members of the State Legislative Councils and nominated members of the Houses have no vote in a presidential election.
• The population figure used to value an assembly member's vote is that of the 1971 census, until the first census taken after 2026.
• The Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies are themselves elected on the first-past-the-post system, not on this one.

• Stopping at the words proportional representation when the Constitution names the single transferable vote as well.
• Letting members of the Legislative Councils into the electoral college. They are not in it.
• Assuming the President is elected the same way as a Member of Parliament.

Either as a describe-the-system item like this one, or as a not-correct statements question on the composition of the electoral college.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is NOT part of the electoral college for the election of the President of India?

  • (a)Elected members of the Lok Sabha
  • (b)Elected members of the Rajya Sabha
  • (c)Elected members of the State Legislative Councils
  • (d)Elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies

  Answer(c) Elected members of the State Legislative Councils — Article 54 leaves the Councils out altogether.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Vice-President of India is elected by which one of the following methods?

  • (a)First-past-the-post by the Lok Sabha alone
  • (b)Proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote
  • (c)A list system used by the State Legislative Assemblies
  • (d)Direct election by all registered voters

  Answer(b) Proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote — the same method as for the President, but with a different electoral college.