India - Rajya Sabha (Council of States)
The Rajya Sabha has a maximum of 250 members. All but twelve are elected by state and territory legislatures for six-year terms. Members must be at least thirty years old. The president nominates up to twelve members on the basis of their special knowledge or practical experience in fields such as literature, science, art, and social service. No further approval of these nominations is required by Parliament. Elections are staggered so that one-third of the members are elected every two years. The number of seats allocated to each state and territory is determined on the basis of relative population, except that smaller states and territories are awarded a larger share than their population justifies.
The Rajya Sabha meets in continuous session. It is not subject to dissolution as is the Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha is designed to provide stability and continuity to the legislative process. Although considered the upper house, its authority in the legislative process is subordinate to that of the Lok Sabha.
Members of Rajya Sabha from a particular state are elected by MLAs of that state through a system of proportional representation by means of the 'single transferable vote' - it means that each elector has only one vote, irrespective of the number of seats to be filled up. For instance, if there are five seats to be filled up, the elector does not cast five votes but indicates five successive preferences, by marking his first preference and the succeeding preferences. In the ordinary straight voting system a candidate who secures the highest number of votes is declared elected, while under the Proportional Representation system any member who secures the necessary 'quota' of votes is declared elected.
The most common method to find out the 'quota' is to divide the total number of valid votes cast by the total number of vacant seats in the state plus one and add one to the quotient. Fore intsance, since Bihar, having Assembly strength of 243, had five vacancies in 2016, any candidate who can secure 41 votes (round figure) will be declared elected. There is also a provision of distribution of surplus votes in this system. Each successful candidate's surplus votes of first preferences which are now of no use to him, are transferred to other candidates proportionately to the second preferences indicated on the whole of his papers (except that the second preferences shown for any other candidate already elected are ignored and the third preferences on those papers taken instead). The point is that every vote shall be made effective and not allowed to go waste, while under the ordinary system of representation, the votes of many electors are of no use.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
