The 14th indirect Presidential election, in order to elect the 13th

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

, was held in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

on 19 July 2012. The last date for filing nominations was 30 June, whereas the votes would be counted on 22 July. The two leading candidates for the presidency were former

Finance Minister A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...

Pranab Mukherjee Dr. Pranab Mukherjee (11 December 193531 August 2020) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 13th president of India from 2012 until 2017. In a political career spanning five decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader in the India ...

from

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

and former

Speaker of the Lok Sabha The speaker of the Lok Sabha ( IAST: ) is the presiding officer and the highest official of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India. The speaker is elected generally in the first meeting of the Lok Sabha following general e ...

Purno Agitok Sangma from

Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and J ...

. On 22 July, Mukherjee was declared the winner. He was sworn in on 25 July at 11:30.

Selection process

The new president is chosen by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

, the elected members of the state legislative assemblies and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of the Union Territories of

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

and

Puducherry Puducherry or Pondicherry may refer to: * Puducherry (union territory), a union territory of India ** Pondicherry, capital of the union territory of Puducherry ** Puducherry district, a district of the union territory of Puducherry ** Puducherry t ...

. The nomination of a candidate for election to the office of the President must be subscribed by at least 50 electors as proposers and 50 electors as seconders. The election is held in accordance with the system of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

by means of the

Single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate ...

method. The voting takes place by secret ballot. The manner of election of President is provided by Article 55 of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

Candidates

File:Secretary Tim Geithner and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee 2010 crop.jpg, Various names had been speculated by the Indian media and politicians prior to the official candidacies being submitted. Opinion polls have shown that the public preferred former President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam to hold the post once again, which was supported by the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mod ...

(BJP). On 15 June, the

United Progressive Alliance United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a centre-left political alliance of predominantly left-leaning political parties in India. It was formed after the 2004 general election with support from left-leaning political parties when no single party ...

(UPA) announced

as its presidential candidate. There were signs of a split within the

Janata Dal (United) Janata Dal (United) ("People’s Party (United)”) abbreviated as JD(U) is an Indian political party with political presence mainly in eastern and north-eastern India. JD(U) is recognised as a state party in the states of Bihar , Arunachal Pr ...

with Bihar Chief Minister

Nitish Kumar Nitish Kumar (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician, who is serving as Chief Minister of Bihar since 22 February 2015, having previous held the office from 2005 to 2014 and for a short period in 2000. The leader of the Janata Dal (Unit ...

saying that "like the other constituents, the JD (U) too will abide by the final decision on the presidential poll," though

Shivanand Tiwari Shivanand Tiwari (born 1943) is a prominent politician from Bhojpur district, Bihar who was a member and an officer of the Janata Dal (United) political party, which he represented in the Rajya Sabha. First he was a prominent leader and spokesp ...

said that "a senior and respected leader like Pranab Mukherjee, who is going into retire rom active politicsshould be given a graceful send off." Tiwari added that " ukherjeeis a very senior and a respected leader, and my personal opinion is that as he should be elected to the president's post with consensus." The Shiv Sena supported Mukherjee's candidates according to its spokesman

Sanjay Raut Sanjay Rajaram Raut (Marathi pronunciation: ənd͡ʒəj ɾaːut̪ born 15 November 1961) is an Indian politician from Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) party. He is a member of the Parliament of India representing Maharashtra in the Ra ...

. On 18 June, Kalam said he would not run in the race following statement from JDU leader Nitish Kumar and SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav that they would prefer to support Mukherjee. Following Kalam's decision, the BJP-led NDA turned to supporting Sangma.

Unofficial list

The final candidacy application had 45 names. Scrutiny of the candidates took place on 2 July Pranab Mukherjee filed his nomination on 28 June with the support of the INC's Manmohan Singh, party president Sonia Gandhi, General Secretary

Rahul Gandhi Rahul Gandhi ( ; born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian Parliament, representing the constituency of Wayanad, Kerala in the 17th Lok Sabha. A member of the Indian National Congress, he served as the president o ...

, Samajwadi Party leader

Mulayam Singh Yadav Mulayam Singh Yadav (22 November 1939 – 10 October 2022) was an Indian politician, a socialist figure and the founder of the Samajwadi Party. In the course of his political career spanning more than six decades, he served for three terms as ...

, the Rashtriya Janata Dal's leader

Lalu Prasad Yadav Lalu Prasad Yadav (born 11 June 1948) is an Indian politician and president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). He is a former Chief Minister of Bihar (1990-1997), a former Railway Minister of India (2004-2009), and a former Member of Parlia ...

, the

Rashtriya Lok Dal Rashtriya Lok Dal (abbreviated as RLD) (translation: National People's Party) is a political party in India founded by Chaudhary Ajit Singh. He was carrying on the political legacy of his father and former Prime Minister of India, Chaudhary Ch ...

's Ajit Singh, the

Lok Janshakti Party The Lok Janshakti Party ( LJP, "People’s Manpower Party") was a state political party mainly based in the state of Bihar, India. The party was formed in 2000 when Ram Vilas Paswan split from Janata Dal. The party had a considerable followin ...

's Ram Vilas Paswan, the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, National Conference's Farooq Abdullah, the Indian Union Muslim League's E. Ahmed and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's T. R. Baalu. The ''Hindustan Times'' suggested that he also had the support of the National Democratic Alliance (India), National Democratic Alliance's Janata Dal (United) and the Shiv Sena, as well as the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Mukherjee said after filing his nomination papers that "I only wish at this time that we have the blessing of god and cooperation of all at this juncture." P. A. Sangma filed his nomination papers with the support of the Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, BJP party president Nitin Gadkari and party leaders Lal Krishna Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, as well as the INC's Arvind Netam, who is the head of the Tribal Forum of India which supported Sangma. Prior to filing his nomination with the ''Rajya Sabha'' Secretary General V. K. Agnihotri he said that "today is a victory of tribal unity, that a tribal is filing his nomination for the post of president."

Potential candidates

Following is the list of potential candidates speculated by media. * Vice President of India, Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari. * Former

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. * Former

Somnath Chatterjee. * Prime Minister of India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. * Minister of Defence (India), Minister of Defence A. K. Antony. *

Meira Kumar. * Former Governor of West Bengal Gopal Krishna Gandhi. * Former Union minister and former Indian Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador to the United States Karan Singh. * Chief Election Commissioner of India, Chief Election Commissioner S. Y. Quraishi. * Chief Minister of Punjab (India), Chief Minister of Punjab Parkash Singh Badal. * Former Minister of Defence (India), Minister of Defence and Samajwadi Party leader

. * Former Union minister Mohsina Kidwai. * Member of the Rajya Sabha and

leader Sharad Yadav.

Electoral votes

The election's Returning Officer V. K. Agnihotri announced: "I declare that Shri Pranab Mukherjee has been duly elected to the office of President of India." Mukherjee gained 373,116 MP votes and 340,647 MLA votes for a total of 713,763 votes to win the election. He defeated Sangma, who got 145,848 MP votes and 170,139 MLA votes for a total of 315,987 votes. Mukherjee's win was aided by cross-voting. He took the oath of office on 25 July at 11:00 in the Central Hall of the parliament building. In Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi abstained from voting, while in Kerala and West Bengal, the same is not applied to the Communist Party of India and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (India), Revolutionary Socialist Party. In Karnataka, one MLA abstained. In Assam, there were two invalid voted and one abstention. In Bihar, three voted were invalid with one abstention. In Haryana, there were 8 invalid votes. In Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Mizoram one vote was invalid. In Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Meghalaya and Nagaland and Punjab and Sikkim, there were two invalid votes. In West Bengal, four votes were invalid. , - ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" , States of India, States ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" , Electors ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" ,

! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" , Purno Agitok Sangma ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" , Invalid/Abstained , - , style="text-align:left;" , Member of Parliament (India), Members of Parliament, , 748, , 527, , 206, , 15/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Andhra Pradesh, , 294, , 182, , 3, , 5/109 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Arunachal Pradesh, , 60, , 54, , 2, , 4/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Assam, , 126, , 110, , 13, , 2/1 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Bihar, , 240/243, , 146, , 90, , 3/1 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Chhattisgarh, , 90, , 39, , 50, , 1/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Goa, , 40, , 9, , 31, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Gujarat, , 182, , 59, , 123, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Haryana, , 90, , 53, , 29, , 8/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Himachal Pradesh, , 67, , 23, , 44, , 1/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Jammu and Kashmir (state), Jammu and Kashmir, , 83/87, , 68, , 15, , 2/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Jharkhand, , 80/81, , 60, , 20, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Karnataka, , 220, , 117, , 103, , 3/1 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Kerala, , 140, , 124, , 0, , 1/15 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Madhya Pradesh, , 230, , 73, , 156, , 4/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Maharashtra, , 272, , 225, , 47, , 2/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Manipur, , 59, , 58, , 1, , 1/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

, , 59, , 34, , 23, , 2/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Mizoram, , 40, , 32, , 7, , 1/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Nagaland, , 60, , 58, , 0, , 2/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Odisha, , 141, , 26, , 115, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Punjab, India, Punjab, , 116, , 44, , 70, , 2/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Rajasthan, , 198, , 113, , 85, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Sikkim, , 31, , 28, , 1, , 2/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Tamil Nadu, , 197, , 45, , 148, , 4/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Tripura, , 57, , 56, , 1, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Uttar Pradesh, , 398, , 351, , 46, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Uttarakhand, , 69, , 39, , 30, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

, , ?, , 275, , 3, , 4/? , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

, , 65, , 42, , 23, , 0/0 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

, , 28, , 23, , 5, , 0/0 , - style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , style="text-align:left;" , Total, , colspan=4, , - , style="text-align:left;" colspan=7 , Source
Zee News
/small>

Reactions

Pranab Mukherjee thanked the people of the "great country" and "express[ed] deep gratitude for electing me to high office." He later told the media that he "thank[s] all those who supported me...I thank Sangma for congratulating me. I have received much more than I have given." He also said he would "protect, defend and preserve [the Constitution of India]. I will try to justify in a modest way as I can to be trustworthy." He was also congratulated by his former party colleagues Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, as well as Vice-President Hamid Ansari and BJP President Nitin Gadkari. While Sangma congratulated Mukherjee he also added: "The process in this Presidential election has been exceptionally partisan and political. The public perception is certainly that in identification and projection of its candidate, the UPA did not genuinely build consensus and that it persuaded political parties commanding major sections of the presidential electoral college by economic and other packages...as well as inducements, threats and promises. For election to the Lok Sabha and Assembly, there is a code of conduct for free and fair elections. Such a code of conduct does not exist for presidential and vice-presidential elections...Rs. 57,000 crore were given to U.P., Rs 27,000 crore to Bihar and so many other things have happened. We are meeting a day after tomorrow to review the whole situation where this matter will come up for discussion." He also added that this was an opportunity lost to elect a tribal candidate as president. INC spokesman Manish Tewari responded in saying: "Magnanimity should mark the conduct of people, who contest elections. Gritting after losing an election only endorses the proverb that grapes are sour [when you cannot reach them];" its General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi added to criticism of Sangma's allegations that "I think one should not talk with such a narrow vision." In response to cross-voting against party lines as Mukherjee had support from 98 MLAs of the INC and JDS yet won with 19 extra votes and the Sangma got only 103 votes of BJP's 119 MLAs, Karnataka BJP General Secretary Dharmendra Pradhan said that "the party is taking this matter very seriously. The Central leadership has asked the Karnataka BJP unit to form a committee to probe this cross-voting by our MLAs. Once we get the committee's report we will take appropriate action." The issue also follows infighting within the Karnataka BJP that culminated in the recent appointment of Jagadish Shettar as chief minister. 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, Anti-corruption activist group Team Anna criticised Mukherjee in saying the country now had a "corrupt president." Biocon CEO Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said of the election: "We are making a mockery of the presidential post. This is considered the highest office in our country and should be apolitical. The president should be an apolitical appointee who has the stature and integrity that can hold the political system accountable. How can persons who are in office, holding key ministerial posts, be even eligible for such a post? This is becoming a political chess game which is devaluing this very lofty post."

References

External links

Election Commission information on the presidential election

Official Website of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat for the Presidential Election
;Media
Presidential poll 2012: Full Coverage
collected news and commentary at ''The Indian Express''
Next President: Race for President, 2012
collected news and commentary at ''CNN-IBN''
Coming up: Presidential Polls 2012
{{Indian presidential elections 2012 elections in India Presidential elections in India July 2012 events in India