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Election of Rajaya Sabha Member
Election of Rajaya Sabha Member
After a nail biting finish to the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat, everyone is talking about the
quota of votes. Quota is the minimum number of votes required to be elected. The math of the
Rajya Sabha election is complex.
The Upper House of parliament is called the Rajya Sabha (RS). It is also known as the ‘Council
of States’ since the members of Rajya Sabha are elected by the legislators of state assemblies.
Each state has a fixed number of RS seats and 1/3rd of them come up for election every 2
years. Article 80 of the constitution stipulates the maximum size of the house. The number of
elected RS members from the States & UTs cannot be more than 238. Apart from the elected
members, 12 members can be nominated by the President of India. Currently there are 233
elected members and 12 nominated members.
The Election Process
• When a candidate obtains more than what is required for his success and therefore has an unnecessary
surplus
• When a candidate polls so few votes that he has absolutely no chance and therefore the votes
nominating him are liable to be wasted
In STV, each voter ranks the list of candidates in order of preference. In the ballot paper, they
place a ‘1’ beside their most preferred candidate, a ‘2’ beside their second most preferred, and so
on. The completed ballot paper therefore contains the candidates in the order of preference as
The Quota
The minimum number of valid votes required for a candidate to be declared elected is called the
quota. The quota calculation depends on the number of seats to be filled.
Scenario 1:
At an election where only one seat is to be filled, every ballot paper is deemed to be of the value
of one and the quota is calculated by adding the values credited to all the candidates and dividing
the total by two and adding one to the quotient, ignoring the remainder, if any, and the resulting
number is the quota. It has to be
For instance, if the total number of votes polled is 65, then the quota is
In this case, for any candidate to be elected, he has to secure a minimum of 33 first preferential
votes to be elected in the first round.
Scenario 2:
At an election where more than one seat is to be filled, every ballot paper is deemed to be of
the value of 100 and the quota is determined by adding the values credited to all the candidates
and dividing the total by a number which exceeds by one the number of vacancies to be filled
and adding one to the quotient ignoring the remainder, if any, and the resulting number is the
quota.
For instance, if 3 candidates are to be elected and the total number of voters who participated in
the poll is 176, the quota is
In this case, a candidate has to get a minimum of 4401 votes or first preferential vote of 45 voters
to be elected in the first round.
If none of the candidates get the required quota of first preference votes, then a process of vote
transfer takes place, successively eliminating those who get the least number of first preferential
votes.
For instance, in an election to fill one vacancy, there are four candidates in the fray and the total
number of valid votes is 1235. According to the STV formula, the quota of first preference votes
required for victory is 618 ignoring the remainder.
In the first round, any candidate securing a minimum of 618 first preferential votes gets
elected. In this example, none of the four candidates secures the quota. Hence there is no winner
after the first round and the process of vote transfer takes place. At the same time, the candidate
Since Wesley is the candidate with the least first preference votes, he is eliminated. When he is
eliminated, his votes are transferred to the other three candidates. The transfer takes place in
proportion of the 2nd preference votes received by the other three candidates in those ballots
with a first preference vote to Wesley. In this example, out of the 235 ballots with a first
preference votes to Wesley, 170 of them had Swarajyam as 2nd preference, 35 of them had Babu
Rao as the 2nd preference and the remaining 30 had Ramesh Naidu as the 2nd Preference. Hence
the transfer takes place in that proportion.
After round two (after transfer of votes), Swarajyam has 620 votes, which is two more than the
required quota. Hence she is declared elected and the remaining three are eliminated. This
process of transfer continues until a clear winner is found. Sometimes, the process can run into
multiple rounds to find the winner.
In the biennial elections to 3 seats of Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, the total number of voters who
participated in the election was 176. Since the election is to more than one seat, the value of each
vote is 100. Hence the quota for any candidate to get elected is the following.
So every candidate had to get the first preferential vote of a minimum of 45 voters to be elected
in the first round. But since the Election Commission rejected the votes of two Congress MLAs,
the number of voters came down to 174 and the quota came down to 4351
After the rejection of two votes, each candidate had to get the first preferential vote of a
minimum of 44 voters to be elected in the first round. Since Ahmed Patel secured the first
preferential votes of 44 MLAs, he secured a total of 4400 votes and was declared elected in the
first round. If the EC had not rejected the votes of two Congress MLAs, the counting would have
gone into the second round. The contest would have been a closer one and Ahmed Patel would
have still won as explained in this story in The Hindu.
Ahmed Patel of the Congress may have won the Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat even
if the two invalidated votes cast in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party had been
allowed, given the peculiarities of the system of single transferable vote.
In fact, what gave Mr. Patel the edge was his unassailable lead over his BJP rival. If
he had got one vote less, it was possible that the third BJP nominee would have sailed
through, depending on how many second preference votes he gathered.
There were four candidates in the fray for three seats, resulting in the necessity for
polling. As many as 176 votes were cast by Gujarat legislators, and two of them being
declared invalid by the Election Commission. As a result, the election was over in the
first round of counting itself, with BJP leaders Amit Shah and Smriti Irani polling 46
votes each, and Ahmed Patel 44. The losing BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput
received 38 votes.
174 17400
Invalidated 2
Ahmed 0 0
Patel
(INC)~
Rajput 46 4 184
(BJP,
surplus
from
Shah)
Rajput 46 4 184
(BJP,
surplus
from
Irani)
Rajput 368
Total in
second
round
Patel 4400+0=4400
Overall
Second Votes Multiplier Value
Round
(Scenario
1)
Rajput 4000+368=4368
Overall
Ahmed 0 0
Patel
(INC)~
Rajput 396
Total in
second
round
Second Votes Multiplier Value
Round
(Best
case
scenario)
Patel 4400+0=4400
Overall
Rajput 4000+396=
Overall 4396
If it is three, each vote will be valued at 199/3 = 66, and if it is four, it will be 199/4 =
49, and so on. In all these scenarios, the total value of second preference votes
transferred from both candidates will be 396 or less.
This is why the 400-point lead of Mr. Ahmed Patel became unassailable. However, if
he had obtained even one vote less than the 44 he got, that is, if he had a total value of
4,300, the transferred votes would have enabled Mr. Rajput to finish with more than
4,300 and thereby win the seat. Ultimately, after the invalidation of two votes, Mr.
Patel had a clear six-vote or 600-point lead.