In Kotah – as in all former royal Rajput families -the law of primogeniture applie. No approval is needed and the succession is normally ratified by the central power – in the days of the Mughal empire by the Emperor himself, later by the British viceroys and thereafter until 1971 by the President of India. In the olden days the umraos or nobles had the power to remove a king from his throne for incapacity or other such grievous charges or faults and enthrone a successor. An umrao is a leading chief of the realm or a big noble equivalent to a duke. Lesser nobles are called sirdars, Thakurs etc.