According to Article 66, who among the following participates in the election of Vice-President of India?
- (a)All the members of both the Houses of Parliament
- (b)Members of Parliament and State Legislatures
- (c)Members of Rajya Sabha only
- (d)Members of Lok Sabha only
Correct — A, All the members of both the Houses of Parliament.
Article 66(1) creates an electoral college for the Vice-President made up of the members of both Houses of Parliament. They vote by proportional representation through the single transferable vote, and the ballot is secret.
The Article speaks of the members of both Houses without narrowing that to elected members. So All the members of both the Houses of Parliament vote here, the nominated members of the Rajya Sabha included.
Carry away the contrast that the paper is really testing: the President's college adds State legislatures and leaves nominated members out; the Vice-President's college does the reverse.
- (b)Members of Parliament and State Legislatures — This is the shape of the President's electoral college under Article 54, which joins the elected members of both Houses of Parliament to the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States.
Even for the President it needs two qualifications: Assemblies only, not Legislative Councils, and elected members only. The Seventieth Amendment, 1992 brought in the elected members of the Delhi and Puducherry Assemblies.
For the Vice-President, Article 66(1) stops at Parliament. A State legislator has no vote in this election, whichever House he sits in.
- (c)Members of Rajya Sabha only — The pull here is Article 64, which makes the Vice-President the ex officio Chairman of the Council of States. The House a person presides over is not the body that chooses him.
An office that the Rajya Sabha alone fills is the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha under Article 89(2), chosen by that House from among its own members.
Rajya Sabha members do vote under Article 66 — the word that breaks this option is 'only', which shuts the Lok Sabha out of a college that includes it.
- (d)Members of Lok Sabha only — The House of the People acting by itself chooses its own presiding officers: the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha under Article 93, elected by the House from among its members.
Article 66 is wider than that. Lok Sabha members are inside the Vice-President's electoral college, but so are the members of the Rajya Sabha, which this option excludes.
As with option (c), the error is the restriction 'only', not the House named.
An electoral college is a defined body of already-elected (and sometimes nominated) representatives that the Constitution designates to fill a particular office. India uses two of them, and their memberships are deliberately different.
Article 66(1) fixes the Vice-President's college as the members of both Houses of Parliament, voting by proportional representation with a single transferable vote, by secret ballot.
Article 54 fixes the President's college as the elected members of both Houses of Parliament together with the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies.
The Vice-President's office is laid out in the block of Articles from 63 to 71: creation of the office, the ex officio chairmanship of the Rajya Sabha, acting as President, election, term, oath and election disputes.
The design reasoning behind the two colleges is federal. The President is head of the Union and of a federation, so the States vote. The Vice-President's constitutional work is parliamentary — presiding over the Rajya Sabha — so the college stays inside Parliament.
That is also why nominated members, who are full members of their House but not chosen by any electorate, are inside the parliamentary college and outside the federal one.
- Article 66(1): the Vice-President is elected by an electoral college consisting of the members of both Houses of Parliament, by proportional representation through the single transferable vote, by secret ballot.
- Article 80(1)(a) provides for twelve Rajya Sabha members nominated by the President; as members of the House they vote in the Vice-President's election.
- Article 54 confines the President's electoral college to elected members: elected MPs of both Houses and elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies.
- The Constitution (Seventieth Amendment) Act, 1992 added the elected members of the Delhi and Puducherry Assemblies to the President's electoral college.
- Before the Constitution (Eleventh Amendment) Act, 1961, Article 66(1) required the members of both Houses to be assembled at a joint meeting; that requirement was dropped.
- Article 66(3): a candidate must be a citizen of India, have completed 35 years of age, and be qualified for election as a member of the Council of States.
- Article 66(2): the Vice-President must not be a member of either House of Parliament or of a State legislature; a sitting member elected to the office vacates that seat.
- Article 71(1): doubts and disputes arising out of the election of a President or Vice-President are inquired into and decided by the Supreme Court, whose decision is final.
The voting method is the same on both sides; who sits in the college is what Article 66 settles.
- Reading 'Article 66' and reaching for the President's electoral college. Article 54 is the President's, and it is the one that brings State legislatures in.
- Treating 'all the members' as loose padding. It is the operative word: nominated members are inside the Vice-President's college and outside the President's.
- Letting Article 64 — the Vice-President as ex officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha — drag the answer towards that House alone.
- Confusing the college with the House whose presiding officer he becomes; the body that elects and the body he presides over are set by different Articles.
- Swapping numbers inside the tight block 63 to 71: Article 65 is acting as President, Article 66 is the election, Article 67 is the term.
- Assuming the two colleges share the arithmetic. Vote values are weighted for the President; each parliamentarian's vote counts alike for the Vice-President.
One shape is the direct who-elects-whom item, as here, with an Article number supplied in the stem and the composition of the college as the answer.
A second shape is the President-versus-Vice-President comparison, usually turning on nominated members, on State legislatures, or on whether votes are weighted.
A third is article-pairing, where the fact is known but the number is what is being tested — Article 65 offered where Article 66 belongs.
A fourth is the odd-one-out among the Vice-President's attributes, mixing the electoral college with age, term and re-election so that one settled fact has to be checked against three others.
UKPSC_2012_PRE_PaperI_Q362012The same boundary, approached from the other side: it asks which elections a State Legislative Assembly can take part in, with the Vice-President listed among the offices, while our item asks who is inside the Article 66 college. Both turn on whether State legislators have a vote for the Vice-President; that one also drags in the Rajya Sabha and the Legislative Council, which our stem does not touch.
UPSC_2013_GS1_Q702013Its second statement spells out the word 'all' in our keyed option — nominated members voting in the Vice-President's election though not in the President's. The difference is in the demand: it pairs that point with a separate claim about the Rajya Sabha's presiding officers, so two facts have to hold, whereas our item rests on the composition of one college.
CDS_GK_2021_I_Q792021One of its options states the electoral college as the members of both Houses of Parliament, which is the fact our stem asks for outright. It differs in form and in scope: it is an odd-one-out among the Vice-President's attributes, setting the college alongside the minimum age, the length of the term and re-election, so the college has to be judged rather than recalled.
HPSC_2023_PRE_GSII_Q812023Same block of Articles, opposite demand. It pairs Vice-President provisions with numbers, one pair assigning the election of the Vice-President to Article 65, so the number is the thing being tested. Our stem supplies Article 66 and asks for its content, which makes the number a given rather than the trap.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under Article 66 of the Constitution, the electoral college that elects the Vice-President of India consists of:
- (a)Elected members of both Houses of Parliament only
- (b)Members of both Houses of Parliament, including the nominated members
- (c)Elected members of both Houses of Parliament and elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies
- (d)Members of both Houses of Parliament and members of the State Legislative Councils
Answerb — Article 66(1) names the members of both Houses of Parliament, with no restriction to elected members, so nominated members are part of the college.(a) inserts a word 'elected' that Article 66 does not carry; that restriction belongs to Article 54. (c) is the President's electoral college under Article 54. (d) brings in State Legislative Councils, which take no part in either the President's or the Vice-President's election.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The requirement that the Vice-President of India be elected by the members of both Houses of Parliament assembled at a joint meeting was removed, and an electoral college substituted, by which one of the following Constitutional Amendments?
- (a)The Ninth Amendment Act, 1960
- (b)The Eleventh Amendment Act, 1961
- (c)The Fifteenth Amendment Act, 1963
- (d)The Forty-second Amendment Act, 1976
Answerb — the Eleventh Amendment Act, 1961 recast Article 66(1) so that the Vice-President is chosen by an electoral college rather than at a joint meeting, and it also barred a challenge to a Presidential or Vice-Presidential election on the ground of a vacancy in the electoral college.(a) the Ninth Amendment dealt with the transfer of territory to Pakistan. (c) the Fifteenth Amendment made changes affecting the High Courts, including the retirement age of their judges. (d) the Forty-second Amendment made wide changes to the Preamble, Directive Principles and judicial review, not to the manner of this election.
- practice — not a real PYQ
With reference to the participation of nominated members of Parliament, which one of the following statements is correct?
- (a)They vote in the election of both the President and the Vice-President
- (b)They vote in the election of neither the President nor the Vice-President
- (c)They vote in the election of the Vice-President but not in the election of the President
- (d)They vote in the election of the President but not in the election of the Vice-President
Answerc — Article 66(1) opens the Vice-President's electoral college to the members of both Houses, so nominated members are included; Article 54 restricts the President's electoral college to elected members, so they are excluded there.(a) and (b) both treat the two elections alike, which is precisely the distinction the two Articles draw. (d) reverses the position, attaching the wider college to the President and the narrower one to the Vice-President.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is chosen by the members of the Rajya Sabha alone?
- (a)The Vice-President of India
- (b)The Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha
- (c)The Speaker of the Lok Sabha
- (d)The Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha
Answerb — under Article 89(2) the Council of States chooses a Deputy Chairman from among its own members, so the Rajya Sabha acts by itself.(a) is elected under Article 66 by an electoral college of the members of both Houses, not by the Rajya Sabha alone, even though he becomes its ex officio Chairman under Article 64. (c) and (d) are both chosen by the House of the People from among its members under Article 93.