When are The Prime Minister’s elections due in India?
India is a parliamentary form of government; thus, in the general elections, voters elect the members of the Lok Sabha and not the Prime Minister of the country. The next General Elections are scheduled to be held in 2019.
The Indian form of government is very different from that of the United States. In the United States, the Presidential elections are held after every four years, which means that people vote for the President of the country. India follows a totally different system. Here, the Parliament has two houses – Lok Sabha, which is the lower house, and the Rajya Sabha, which is the Upper House. The General Elections are held to elect the members of the Lok Sabha, who are elected directly by the people.
The Lok Sabha has 543 members who are elected every five years. On the Election Day, voters head to the polling booths to cast their votes to elect the members of the Lok Sabha or the House of People. The party which gets the majority of seats in the Lok Sabha forms the government.
The Prime Minister is from the party with the most seats. But, it is the prerogative of the party to release the name of their candidate for the Prime Minister’s post prior to the elections, or they may do it after coming to power. There have been instances in India when the names of the Prime Minister have been declared at the last minute.
However, to become the PM, the person should have been directly elected by the people through the Lok Sabha or been elected in the Rajya Sabha. In the Rajya Sabha, members are elected by the elected members of the legislative assembly of each state by using the single transferable vote. Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister after winning his seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, while Manmohan Singh was elected through the Rajya Sabha.
There is a constitutional provision that in case the person appointed as the Prime Minister does not belong either to the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha then he or she has a period of six months from the date of his/her appointment to become a member of either house.
Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister of India when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance stormed to power in 2014. The next General Elections are due in 2019 with Narendra Modi likely to be a nominee from BJP for the Prime Minister’s post.
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