The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India.

Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India consists of the two houses and the President of India. The president has the power to call, prorogue and dissolve parliament.

The parliament is bicameral, with an upper house called as Council of States or Rajya Sabha, and a lower house called as House of People or Lok Sabha. The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Sansad Bhawan (commonly known as the Sansad Marg), in New Delhi. The Members of either house are commonly referred to as Member of Parliament or MP. The MPs of Lok Sabha are elected by direct election and the MPs of Rajya Sabha are elected by the members of the State Legislative Assemblies and Union territories of Delhi and Pondicherry only in accordance with proportional voting. The Parliament is composed of 802 MPs, who serve the largest democratic electorate in the world and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world (714 million eligible voters in 2009)

Chairman of the Rajya Sabha & Vice President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari, (I) since 11 August 2007 Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha CA.K. Rahman Khan, (INC) since 3 January 2007 Speaker of the Lok Sabha Meira Kumar, (INC) since 30 May 2009 Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha Kariya Munda,BJP

790

Rajya Sabha Political groups

National Democratic Alliance (UPA)

Lok Sabha Political groups

National Democratic Alliance (NDA)

Rajya Sabha Voting system

Proportional Representation
Meeting place

Lok Sabha Voting system

First past the post

Lok Sabha Last election

Indian general election, 2009

The parliament house was planned at the introductory stage to be a part of the Rashtrapati Bhawan. But in 1919 according to the Montague-Chelmsford reforms, it was announced to be designed as the Indian parliament

The Indian Parliament consists of two houses called as Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha respectively and the President of India. Concurrence of all the three is required to pass any legislative business.

Lok Sabha (in Hindi) is also known as the "House of the People" or the lower house. Almost all of its members are directly elected by citizens of India. Every citizen who is over 18 years of age, irrespective of gender, caste, religion or race, who is otherwise not disqualified, is eligible to vote

The Lok Sabha can have up to 552 members as envisaged in the Constitution of India. It has a term of five years.

To be eligible for membership in the Lok Sabha, a person must be a citizen of India and must be 25 years of age or older

Mentally sound, should not be bankrupt and should not be criminally convicted. Currently, it has 545 members Up to 530 members can be elected from the states in single member districts, up to 20 members from the Union territories and no more than two members from AngloIndian community can be nominated by the President of India

. The number is divided among the different States and Union Territories as follows: 1) Andhra Pradesh 42 (2) Arunachal Pradesh 2 (3) Assam 14 (4) Bihar 40 (5) Chhattisgarh 11 (6) Goa 2 (7) Gujarat 26 (8) Haryana 10 (9) Himachal Pradesh 4 (10) Jammu & Kashmir 6 (11) Jharkhand 14 (12) Karnataka 28 (13) Kerala 20 (14) Madhya Pradesh 29 (15) Maharashtra 48 (16) Manipur 2 (17) Meghalaya 2 (18) Mizoram 1
19) Nagaland 1 (20) Orissa 21 (21) Punjab 13 (22) Rajasthan 25 (23) Sikkim 1 (24) Tamil Nadu 39 (25) Tripura 2 (26) Uttaranchal 5 (27) Uttar Pradesh 80 (28) West Bengal 42 (29) Andaman & Nicobar Islands 1 (30) Chandigarh 1 (31) Dadra & Nagar Haveli 1 (32) Daman & Diu 1 (33) NCT of Delhi 7 (34) Lakshadweep 1 (35) Pondicherry 1

36) Anglo-Indians (if nominated 2 by the President under Article 331 of the Constitution)

The Rajya Sabha is also known as "Council of States" or the upper house. Its members are indirectly elected by members of legislative bodies of theStates

The Rajya Sabha has 250 members in all. Elections to it are scheduled and the chamber cannot be dissolved. Each member has a term of 6 years and elections are held for onethird of the seats after every 2 years.
The Council of States is designed to maintain the federal character of the country. The number of members from a state depends on the population of the state (e.g. 31 from Uttar Pradesh and one fromNagaland). The minimum age for a person to become a member of Rajya Sabha is 30 years

The President is elected, from a group of nominees, by the elected members of the Parliament of India (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) as well as of the state legislatures (Vidhan Sabhas), and serves for a term of five years.

Name

Term

Party

Coalition in Power

G.V. Mavlankar

15 May 1952 - 27 February 1956

Indian National Congress

INC+

M. A. Ayyangar

8 March 1956 - 16 April 1962

Indian National Congress

INC+

Sardar Hukam Singh

17 April 1962 - 16 March 1967

Indian National Congress

INC+

N. Sanjiva Reddy

17 March 1967 - 19 July 1969

Indian National Congress

INC+

G. S. Dhillon

8 August 1969 - 1 December 1975

Indian National Congress

INC+

Bali Ram Bhagat

15 January 1976 - 25 March 1977

Indian National Congress

INC+

K.S. Hegde

21 July 1977 - 21 January 1980

Janata Party

JP+

Balram Jakhar

22 January 1980 - 18 December 1989

Indian National Congress

INC+

10

Rabi Ray

19 December 1989 - 9 July 1991

Janata Dal

NF

11

Shivraj Patil

10 July 1991 - 22 May 1996 25 May 1996 - 23 March 1998 24 March 1998 - 3 March 2002 10 May 2002 - 2 June 2004

Indian National Congress

INC+

12

P.A. Sangma

Indian National Congress

UF

13

G.M.C. Balayogi

Telugu Desam Party

NDA

14

Manohar Joshi

Shiv Sena Communist Party of India (Marxist) Indian National Congress

NDA

15

Somnath Chatterjee

4 June 2004 - 30 May 2009

UPA

16

Meira Kumar

30 May 2009present

UPA