36 Nominations Were Rejected In The Presidential Election 1977, Reddy Became The President Unopposed

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Neelam Sanjiva Reddy has been the only President in the history of the country to be elected unopposed. However, the story of his being elected unopposed is very interesting. On February 11, 1977, the country’s sixth President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed breathed his last. Just a day before this, the Lok Sabha elections were held two years after the Emergency. The then Vice President BD Jatti was made the acting President. A few months later, i.e. in June-July, assembly elections were also held in 11 states, during which a notification for the presidential election was issued on July 4.

When the ruling Congress candidate lost

In 1969, Reddy, the official candidate of the ruling Congress, was defeated by VV Giri. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had appealed to the MPs and MLAs to vote judiciously to shore up their opponents within the party.

37 candidates, including Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, filed their nomination papers to become the President, out of which the nominations of 36 were rejected on different grounds. In the end Reddy was the only candidate left. Legislators from 22 state assemblies, including 756 MPs, did not vote for the Presidential election, as Reddy was the only candidate left in the last election.

In this way, the country got Neelam Sanjiva Reddy as the seventh President, who was the only person elected unopposed to the highest office in the history of independent India. There will be 4,809 voters in the 16th presidential election to be held on Monday, including 776 MPs and 4,033 MLAs.

There were five candidates in the first election

In the first presidential election in 1952, there were five candidates, of which the last candidate got only 533 votes. Dr. Rajendra Prasad had won in this. The second election in 1957 had three candidates. Dr. Prasad also won this election. There were three candidates in the third election, out of which Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan won. In the fourth election in 1967, there were 17 candidates, nine of whom did not receive a single vote. Zakir Hussain got more than 4.7 lakh votes in this election.

Debate was not allowed on the lines of America

In the ninth presidential election in 1987, Mithilesh Kumar Sinha requested the Election Commission to give a chance to the candidates to present their views in front of the people through All India Radio and Doordarshan on the lines of the election of the US President, but this was rejected.

Strict rules: The Election Commission has made a condition of 50 members of the electoral college to be present as proposers and 50 members as supporters to participate in the election. That is, no election can be contested without the cooperation of 100 members of the Presidential Electoral College.