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Election Commission to announce Presidential poll schedule today
President Ram Nath Kovind’s five-year term ends on July 24. The election for the next President must be held before the completion of the incumbent President’s term.
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) will announce the schedule for the election of the President of India on Thursday, a statement from ECI said.
The election is expected to be held in July as President Ram Nath Kovind’s five-year term ends on July 24. As per Article 26 of the Constitution of India, the election for the next President must be held before the completion of the incumbent President’s term.
The Presidential election will be followed by the election for the vice president in August.
In 2017, the Presidential elections were held on July 17 and the counting took place on July 20. The Congress-led Opposition had fielded former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar as its candidate. The ruling dispensation mustered 661,278 for Kovind while Kumar received 434,241votes.
The opposition’s choice for the Presidential candidate will depend on the name the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) puts forward, a Congress leader said. Discussions on the vice-presidential election, in which only the MPs can vote, have not started yet, a non-Congress opposition leader said, seeking anonymity.
The fragmented Opposition’s chances of getting its candidate elected in the race are however, slim. Even though the NDA is short of the majority mark of 549,452 votes by 9,000 votes, it has loyal supporters such as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the YSR Congress Party, who can make up for the deficit.
On the other hand, the Congress has a difficult task in hand to find a name that will be acceptable to all opposition parties, some of whom have been maintaining distance with the Congress in the recent months.
