President of India

The President of India or Rashtrapati (Hindi: राष्ट्रपति Sanskrit, lit. Lord of the realm) is the head of state and first citizen of India, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. In theory, the President possesses considerable power. With few exceptions, most of the authority vested in the President is in practice exercised by the Council of Ministers, headed by the Prime Minister.

Election of the President

Whenever the office becomes vacant, the new president is chosen by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of the Parliament and the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies (Vidhan Sabha). The election is held in accordance to the system of Proportional Representation by means of Single Transferable Vote method. The Voting takes place by secret ballot system. The manner of election of President is provided by Article 55. [1]

Electoral College

The value of votes cast by elected members of the state legislative assemblies and both houses of parliament were decided as per the provisions of article 55(2) of the Constitution of India. The details of number of voters and votes for this presidential election are given below.^[5]

• Presidential elections in India involve proportional representation from respective states. The number of votes assigned to a particular voter from a state assembly is decided as follows.

Constitutional role

Constitutional role of the Indian Constitution states "There shall be a President of India". Article 53(1)vests in the President the executive powers of the Union which are exercised either directly or through subordinate officers in accordance with the Constitution. Although the Constitution explicitly says that the president is the executive head of the state, real executive power is exercised by the Council of Ministers, headed by the Prime Minister. This is inferred from Article 74 of the Indian Constitution, providing for a "... council of ministers to aid and advise the President who shall, in exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advice".

The president of India shall, before entering upon his office, make and subscribe in the presence of the Chief Justice of India or, in his absence, the senior-most Judge of the Supreme Court available, an oath or affirmation that he/she shall protect, preserve and defend the Constitution (Article 60).

#	Name	Portrait	Took office	Left office
1	Dr Rajendra Prasad		26 January 1950	13 May 1962
2	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan		13 May 1962	13 May 1967
3	Zakir Hussain		13 May 1967	3 May 1969
	Varahagiri Venkata Giri *		3 May 1969	20 July 1969
	Muhammad Hidayatullah *		20 July 1969	24 August 1969
4	Varahagiri Venkata Giri		24 August 1969	24 August 1974
5	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed		24 August 1974	11 February 1977
	Basappa Danappa Jatti *		11 February 1977	25 July 1977
6	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy		25 July 1977	25 July 1982	h
7	Giani Zail Singh		25 July 1982	25 July 1987
8	Ramaswamy Venkataraman		25 July 1987	25 July 1992
9	Shankar Dayal Sharma		25 July 1992	25 July 1997
10	Kocheril Raman Narayanan		25 July 1997	25 July 2002
11	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam		25 July 2002	25 July 2007
13	Pratibha Patil		25 July 2007	Incumbent

• The symbol (*) with a light brown background indicates an acting president.