The second question which has to be borne in mind in dealing with this question of adult suffrage is the administrative machinery. Is it possible for this country to provide the staff that would be necessary to be placed at the different polling stations to enable the 158.5 millions to come to the polls and to record the voting? I am sure about it that not many candidates would be standing for election and they would not like non-official agencies to be employed, for the simple reason, that the non-official agency would not be under the control of the State and maybe open to corruption, to bribery, to manipulations and to other undesirable influences. The machinery, therefore, will have to be entirely supplied from the Governmental administrative machinery. Is it possible either for the Government of India or for the State Governments to spare officials sufficient enough to manage the election in which 158.5 millions would be taking part? That again seems to me to be a complete impossibility. But apart from these two considerations, one important consideration which weighed with the Drafting Committee, and also with the Union Committee, in deciding to rule out adult suffrage, was the position of the President in the Constitution. If the President was in the same position as the President of the United States, who is vested with all the executive authority of the United States, I could have understood the argument in favour of direct election, because of the principle that wherever a person is endowed with the same enormousness of powers as the President of the United States, it is only natural that the choice of such a person should be made directly by the people. But what is the position of the President of the Indian Union? He is, if Prof. K. T. Shah were to examine the other provisions of the Constitution, only a figurehead. He is not in the same position as the President of the United States. If any functionary under our Indian Constitution is to be compared with the United States President, he is the Prime Minister, and not the President of the Union. So far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it is undoubtedly provided in the Constitution that he shall be elected on adult suffrage by the people. Now, having regard to the fact, to which I have referred, that the President has really no powers to execute, the last argument which one could advance in favour of the proposition that the President should be elected by adult suffrage seems to me to fall to the ground. I, therefore submit that, having regard to the size of the electorate, the paucity of administrative machinery necessary to manage elections on such a vast scale and that the President does not possess any of the executive or administrative powers which the President of the United States possesses, I submit that it is unnecessary to go into the question of adult suffrage and to provide for the election of the President on that basis.
