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Unit 11: India Independent to 1964

The President is elected for five years, is eligible for re-election, and can be removed through Notes
impeachment for violation of the constitution. He is elected by elected members of both houses of
parliament and of state legislative assemblies by a method of proportional representation through
single transferable vote. Each Member of Parliament (MP) or Member of Legislative Assembly
(MLA) has a single transferable vote, with a value corresponding to the population represented by
him.

The Vice-President
If the President dies in office, or is unable to perform his duties because of absence, illness or any
other cause, or is removed or resigns, the Vice-President is enjoined upon by Article 65 to act as
the President. This has happened on two occasions when Presidents— Dr Zakir Hussain and
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed—died in office and Vice-Presidents V.V. Giri and B.D. Jatti had to step in.
For this reason, the choice of Vice-President has to be made with great care.

In normal times, the main function of the Vice-President, who is elected for five years by
both houses of parliament, but is not a member of any legislature, is to act as the chairperson
of the Rajya Sabha.

The Council of Ministers and the Prime Minister
The real executive power vests under the constitution in the council of ministers headed by the
prime minister. The President appoints as prime minister the leader of the party that has a majority
in the Lok Sabha or, if no party has a clear majority, a person who has the confidence of the
majority of the members of the Lok Sabha. Other ministers are selected by the prime minister and
appointed by the President. Ministers may be appointed without being members of parliament,
but they must become members of any one house either by election or nomination within six
months. The council of ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha and has to resign as
soon as it loses the confidence of the Lok Sabha.
The prime minister is, in Nehru’s words, the ‘linchpin of Government’. Almost all the powers
formally vested in the President are in fact exercised by the prime minister, who is the link between,
the President, the cabinet, and, the parliament. The position of the prime minister in India has
acquired its pre-eminence at least partly from the fact that the first prime minister, Jawaharlal
Nehru, who retained his office for almost seventeen years, had such enormous prestige and influence
that some of it rubbed off on to the office itself. Indira Gandhi was also so powerful after her election
victory and the Bangladesh war in 1971 that the prime minister’s position within the political system
acquired enormous weight. The prime minister has full powers to choose ministers as well as
recommend their dismissal. This gives the prime minister enormous powers of patronage.
The constitution does not mention different categories of ministers such as cabinet ministers,
ministers of state and deputy ministers, except in Article 352 where the cabinet is defined as the
council consisting of ministers of cabinet rank. In effect, however, the cabinet rank ministers who
meet regularly in cabinet meetings chaired by the prime minister, are the most important as all
important decisions are taken in cabinet meetings.
The constitution does not allow the possibility of breakdown of constitutional machinery and
direct President’s Rule at the Centre as it does in the states. There must always be a council of
ministers. Even when a vote of no-confidence is passed and the council of ministers resign, they
are asked by the President to continue till the new one is in place.
A new constitutional controversy arose with the refusal of the BJP-led government, which was
voted out of office on 17 April 1999, to act in the spirit of a caretaker as had been the convention.
Despite protests by Opposition parties, the government rejected any notion of caretaker status
with the argument that there was no such provision in the constitution. However, it is arguable

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