Presidential election in India in 1967

The presidential election in India in 1967 was the fourth election of the state president in India since independence and took place on May 6, 1967. While in the previous elections one candidate had won the race with more than 80% of the vote, this time there were two seriously competing candidates. The election was won by Zakir Hussain , the Congress party's candidate.

prehistory

Voting weight of the representatives from the states

State	Voting weight
Andhra Pradesh	125
Assam	94
Bihar	146
Gujarat	123
Haryana	94
Jammu and Kashmir	59
Kerala	127
Madhya Pradesh	109
Madras	144
Maharashtra	146
Mysore	109
Nagaland	8th
Orissa	125
Punjab	107
Rajasthan	110
Uttar Pradesh	174
West Bengal	125

The term of office of President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , who was elected in 1962, ended on May 12, 1967. On April 3, 1967, the dates of the election were announced. Candidate proposals could be submitted up to April 13, 1967. The admission of the candidates was decided on April 15, 1967 and those admitted to the election had until April 18, 1967 the opportunity to withdraw their candidacy. The actual election took place on May 6, 1967, and the votes were counted on May 9, 1967.

The Congress Party nominated Zakir Hussain as their candidate. Hussain was the first Muslim candidate for this office. The opposition parties, with the exception of the left-wing parties, agreed on Koka Subba Rao as a common candidate. Rao had previously been President of the Indian Supreme Court ( Supreme Court of India ) and resigned from this office on April 11, 1967 to run for president.

Election mode and choice

See also : Electoral College (India)

The Electoral College consisted of 4,131 parliamentarians. Of these, 748 came from the two chambers of the Indian parliament (520 Lok Sabha, 228 Rajya Sabha) and 3,383 from the parliaments of the 17 federal states. The voting weights were redefined based on the 1961 census. The voting weights in the electoral college had also shifted because the states of Nagaland and Haryana had been newly established since the last election . Each member of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha had a voting weight of 576 and the voting weights of the state MPs ranged from 8 (Nagaland) to 174 (Uttar Pradesh).

A total of 17 nominated candidates were accepted for election.

The result was the following:

candidate	Given weighted votes	In percent
Zakir Hussain	471.244	56.23
Koka Subba Rao	363.971	43.43
Yamuna Prasad Trisulia	750	0.16
Bhamburkar Shriniwas Gopal	232	0.09
Brahma deodorant	232	0.03
Krishna Kumar Chatterjee	125	0.01
Kumar Kamla Singh	125	0.01
Chandradutt Senani	0	0
UP Chugani	0	0
MC Davar	0	0
Hari Ram	0	0
Man Singh	0	0
Manohara Holkar	0	0
Motilal Bhikabhai Patel	0	0
Seetharamaiah Ramaswamy Sharma Hoysala	0	0
Satyabhakt	0	0
total	838.048	100

4,060 MPs took part in the election, which corresponds to a turnout of 98%. 41 votes with a total voting weight of 7,089 were declared invalid. Nine of the 17 candidates had not received a single vote at all.

Zakir Hussain was declared elected and took office as the fourth President of India since independence on May 13, 1967.

Web links

• Election to the Office of the President 2012. (PDF) Indian Election Commission, 2012, accessed on April 11, 2015 (English, detailed explanation of the election process based on the 2012 election). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} J. K. Chopra: Politics of Election Reforms in India. Mittal Publications, Delhi 1989, ISBN 81-7099-103-X , pp. 120f
2. ^ ^{A b c} Report on the Fourth General Elections in India 1967: CHAPTER XIII: THE PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. (pdf) Election Commission of India, 1967, p. 108ff , accessed on April 11, 2015 (English). 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Election to the Office of the President 2012. (pdf) Indian Election Commission, 2012, accessed on February 18, 2015 (English, detailed explanation of the election process based on the 2012 election). 
4. ↑ Presidential race indicates new political trends. rediff.com, June 29, 2012, accessed April 11, 2015 .