Indian Elections

India has an asymmetric federal government, with elected officials at the federal, state and local levels. At the national level, the head of government, Prime Minister, is elected by members of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the parliament of India. The elections are conducted by the Election Commission of India. All members of the Lok Sabha, except two who can be nominated by the President of India, are directly elected through general elections which take place every five years, in normal circumstances, by universal adult suffrage and a first-past-the-post system. Members of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, are elected by elected members of the legislative assemblies of the states and the Electoral college for the Union Territories of India.

The 2014 general election involved an electorate of 863,500,000 people (larger than both EU and US elections combined). Declared expenditure has trebled since 1989 to almost $300 million, using more than one million electronic voting machines. The size of the huge electorate mandates that elections be conducted in a number of phases (there were nine phases in the 2014 general election). It involves a number of step-by-step processes from announcement of election dates to the announcement of results paving the way for the formation of the new government.

The President of India is elected for a five-year term by an electoral college of India consisting of members of federal legislature and state legislatures (i.e. all the elected member of parliament and all elected members of all legislative assemblies of the country).

The House of the People (Lok Sabha) represents citizens of India (as envisaged by the Constitution of India, currently the members of Lok Sabha are 545, out of which 543 are elected for five-year term and two members represent the Anglo-Indian community). The 543 members are elected under the plurality ('first past the post') electoral system. The Council of States (Rajya Sabha) has 250 members, 238 members elected for a six-year term, with one-third retiring every two years. The members are indirectly elected, this being achieved by the votes of legislators in the state and union (federal) territories. The elected members are chosen under the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. The twelve nominated members are usually an eclectic mix of eminent artists (including actors), scientists, jurists, sportspersons, businessmen and journalists and common people.

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