Every power the Constitution gives the President, why he must act on his ministers’ advice, where he can still make a difference, and how an electoral college of MPs and MLAs chooses him.
PowerArticle 53Executive powerVested in the President, in name.
LimitArticle 74Aid & adviceExercised on the advice of ministers.
Eligibility35 yearsMinimum agePlus citizenship and Lok Sabha eligibility.
Nomination50 + 50Proposers & secondersWith a Rs 15,000 deposit in the RBI.
MethodSTVSingle transferable voteProportional representation, secret ballot.
Tenure5 yearsTerm of officeElection disputes go to the Supreme Court.
Seven roles, one office
India has a parliamentary form of government. So the President is only the nominal executive; the real executive is the council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister. Yet on paper, the President holds a remarkable range of powers.
All executive actions of the Government of India are formally taken in the President’s name.
Article 74 · aid and advice
So the President has almost all the authority. But his role is restricted, because he must exercise his powers and functions on the aid and advice of the council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister (Article 74).
“He is the head of the State but not of the Executive. He represents the nation but does not rule the nation. He is the symbol of the nation. His place in administration is that of a ceremonial device or a seal by which the nation’s decisions are made known. He can do nothing contrary to their advice nor can he do anything without their advice. The President of the United States can dismiss any Secretary at any time. The President of the Indian Union has no power to do so, so long as his ministers command a majority in Parliament.”— Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Constituent Assembly
The 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act (1976) made the President bound by the advice of the council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister.
On paper
All the authority
In practice
Acts on advice
Not a rubber stamp
Yet the President is not totally ineffective. Though he has no constitutional discretion, he has some situational discretion:
Appointing the Prime Minister when no party has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha, or when the Prime Minister dies suddenly and there is no obvious successor.
Example: In 1979 President N. Sanjiva Reddy invited Charan Singh to form the government after the Janata government fell.
Dismissing the council of ministers when it cannot prove the confidence of the Lok Sabha.
Dissolving the Lok Sabha if the council of ministers has lost its majority.
The 44th Constitutional Amendment Act (1978) allowed the President to return advice once for his ministers’ reconsideration — but the reconsidered advice is binding.
A Bihar example
Sept 1998
Cabinet advice returned
Months later
Same advice sent again
Feb 1999
President’s Rule imposed
In September 1998 President K.R. Narayanan returned the cabinet’s recommendation to impose President’s Rule in Bihar. A few months later the cabinet sent the same advice again, and only then was President’s Rule imposed in Bihar, in February 1999.
The power to withhold assent to a bill passed by Parliament. It is usually used in two cases:
Example: President Rajendra Prasad withheld assent to the PEPSU Appropriation Bill (1954), and President R. Venkataraman to a 1991 bill on MPs’ salaries, allowances and pensions.
The President neither ratifies nor rejects nor returns the bill, but simply keeps it pending indefinitely. The Constitution sets no time limit for deciding on a bill presented for assent.
Example: President Zail Singh used the pocket veto on the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill in 1986.
So, although the parliamentary system restricts the President’s role through constitutional provisions, he is not completely powerless — like the old man of the family, he cannot rule the house, but he can still warn, delay, ask for a rethink and act when the family is leaderless.
Note: The source’s final sentence is cut off (“…it is not the case that he is completely .”); it has been completed here.
The first citizen
The President is the head of the Indian State — the first citizen of India and the symbol of the nation’s unity, integrity and solidarity.
The composition of the electoral college.
The manner of election.
The Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Act, 1952, and its Rules, regulate all matters relating to the election of the President and the Vice-President.
Exception: A sitting President or Vice-President, the Governor of any state, and a minister of the Union or of any state are not deemed to hold an office of profit — so they can contest.
Filing a nomination
Articles 54 & 55
The President is not elected directly by the people but by an electoral college made up of:
Who votes
Who does not vote
If an assembly is dissolved, its members lose the right to vote in the presidential election, even if fresh elections to it are not held before the presidential election.
Article 55 says that, as far as practicable, there shall be uniformity in the scale of representation of different states, and parity between the states as a whole and the Union. To achieve this, each vote is given a value:
Every elected MLA has as many votes as there are multiples of one thousand in the quotient obtained by dividing the state’s population by the total number of elected members of its assembly.
Example: Uttar Pradesh: 1971 population 8,38,49,905 ÷ 403 MLAs = 2,08,064 → 208 votes per MLA. Sikkim’s MLA vote is worth just 7.
Every elected member of either House of Parliament has as many votes as are obtained by dividing the total votes of all state MLAs by the total number of elected members of both Houses.
Example: In the 2022 election, each MP’s vote was worth 700.
Single transferable vote
The election is held by proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, and voting is by secret ballot. This ensures the winner is returned by an absolute majority of votes.
Note: The source cites Article 54 here; the voting method is actually laid down in Article 55(3).
The winning quota
To be elected, a candidate must secure a fixed quota of votes:
The quota is found by dividing the total number of valid votes polled by the number of candidates to be elected (only one, for President) plus one, and adding one to the quotient.
Each elector gets one ballot paper and marks preferences 1, 2, 3, 4… against the candidates — as many preferences as there are candidates.
First-preference votes are counted. If a candidate reaches the quota, he is declared elected.
Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated, and his ballots’ second preferences are transferred to the remaining candidates.
The process continues until a candidate secures the required quota.
All doubts and disputes about the President’s election are inquired into and decided by the Supreme Court, whose decision is final.
The election cannot be challenged on the ground that the electoral college was incomplete — that is, that there were vacancies among its members.
The elected President holds office for five years from the date he enters upon his office.
A critical examination
The Constituent Assembly devised a unique mechanism — a middle course between two extreme suggestions put before it.
One suggestion was that the President be elected directly by the people under universal adult franchise. The makers chose indirect election because:
The other extreme was that only the members of the two Houses of Parliament should elect the President. The makers did not prefer this:
Indirect election by an electoral college of MPs and MLAs
The present system makes the President a representative of the Union and the states equally.
Called a misnomer in the Constituent Assembly: proportional representation applies where two or more seats are filled, but the President’s is a single vacancy. It could better be called a preferential or alternative vote system.
Also objected to, because no voter has a single vote — every voter has plural votes.
The value of an MLA’s vote differs from state to state, depending on the assembly’s strength and the state’s population as per the 1971 Census.
Note: The 84th Amendment (2001) froze the use of the 1971 Census for this purpose until the first census after 2026.
Parity between the states as a whole and the Union means the process is weighted in favour of state representatives, who are represented twice — first as members of the Council of States (Rajya Sabha), and again as members of the state assemblies.
This was deliberate, so that the President commands unquestioning support from the whole country and the constituent states.
Uniformity among states was meant broadly to give representation on the basis of population, respecting the principle of one man, one vote and the ideas of a single Indian citizenship and equality among citizens.
Exam preparation
Every question this page prepares you for, with the parts that answer it.
“He represents the nation but does not rule the nation.”
Curated for BPSC, UPSC & State PCS Civil Services Aspirants | Indian Polity Master Module
