Vice-President elections today: NDA confident of victory, INDIA bloc braces for a tough fight

Polling for the vice presidential election will commence today at 10 am in the new Parliament building. The election will continue till 5 pm, after which counting of the votes would start at 6 pm. The result of the vice presidential election, which was necessitated after the abrupt departure of Jagdeep Dhankhar on July 21, will be announced in the evening today.

The vice presidential election is conducted in a secret ballot system.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to be one of the first ones to vote as he would be leaving for Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to survey the flood- and rain-ravaged states.

Radhakrishnan vs Reddy

For the role of the Vice-President of India, the NDA fielded CP Radhakrishnan, while the Opposition fielded B Sudershen Reddy.

Radhakrishnan (67) served as a two-term member of the Lok Sabha from Coimbatore during the tenure of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He then went on to head the BJP in Tamil Nadu.

Reddy (79) is a retired Supreme Court judge, and a veteran jurist known for his landmark judgments. Among his judgments was the declaration of Salwa Judum, a group of trained tribal youth deployed as special police officers to take on Naxalites, as illegal and unconstitutional. Home Minister Amit Shah claimed that the 2011 verdict was a setback for the efforts to fight Maoists in Chhattisgarh.

The NDA has projected Radhakrishnan as an untainted leader with a rich political and administrative experience, who they have said would maintain these qualities and prove to be useful as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

Reddy, on the other hand, appealed to MPs to not let party loyalty guide their choice and said that by voting for him they would ensure that the Rajya Sabha stands as a true temple of democracy. It was not just a vote to elect the Vice-President but for the spirit of India itself, he said.

Meanwhile, PM Modi said Radhakrishnan’s candidature has “generated immense enthusiasm all across”. “People believe that he will be an excellent Vice President, who will enrich the office with his wisdom and insights," Modi said on X.

The Opposition asked the members to cast their vote by hearing the voice of their conscience. They have deemed the V-P election an "ideological battle".

The V-P Election

The NDA and Opposition INDIA bloc held separate meetings on Monday in the Parliament complex to show their strength, sensitise the MPs about the voting, as well as conducting mock polls.

Leaders of the INDIA bloc parties including Congress, Samajwadi Party, DMK, TMC, RJD, JMM, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), CPI and CPI-M met in the Central Hall of Samvidhan Sadan and were briefed on the election process.

From the looks of it, the numbers favour the ruling NDA, which claims support of 427 votes out of 781 valid votes, while the opposition has 315 MPs. The majority mark is 391.

There are 39 MPs unaligned to the two main blocs. The YSR Congress has announced support for Radhakrishnan, and AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi has pledged his vote to Reddy. BJD and BRS have said they will abstain from voting. The Shiromani Akali Dal will boycott the election, citing lack of support for flood-affected people in Punjab from the state government, Centre or Congress.

Opposition MPs were advised not to waste their votes and were told to mark only preference '1' and not to mark a second preference, which is counted only in case of a tie.

The electoral college for the vice presidential election has 788 members, including 245 from Rajya Sabha and 543 from Lok Sabha. The 12 nominated Rajya Sabha members are also eligible to vote. Currently, the strength is 781 due to six vacant Rajya Sabha seats and one vacant Lok Sabha seat.