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The ruling NDA coalition’s candidate M Venkaiah Naidu is set to trounce the Opposition’s Gopalkrishna Gandhi in vice-presidential elections to be held on Saturday. Results will be declared in the evening.
Given the NDA’s supremacy in the electoral college, Venkaiah’s election to the Chair once graced by luminaries such as S Radhakrishnan, KR Narayanan and the present incumbent, the scholarly Hamid Ansari, is a foregone conclusion.
The Vice-President is elected by members of an electoral college comprising MPs of both Houses of Parliament, in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.
The present strength of electors is 790, which includes 245 members of the Rajya Sabha (including 12 nominated members) and 543 members of the Lok Sabha. There are two vacancies in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha.
The BJP’s Lok Sabha MP Chhedi Paswan is barred from casting his vote following a judicial pronouncement. In the 545-member Lok Sabha, the BJP has 281 members. The BJP-led NDA has a total of 338 members.
In the 243-member Rajya Sabha, the BJP’s tally has gone up to 58. The Congress has 59 MPs in the Upper House. With its wins in recent Assembly polls, the BJP is set to emerge as the single largest party in the Rajya Sabha too. Next year, the NDA’s tally would be close to 100.
However, going by the political alignments already formed during the just-concluded Presidential election, Venkaiah is guaranteed a total of 520 voters, giving him a thumping two-thirds majority to be elected Vice President. No whip can be issued by political parties as the election is through a secret ballot.
The counting of votes will commence after polling and the results will be declared by 7 pm, the Election Commission said. The BJD and the JD(U), which had supported NDA nominee Ram Nath Kovind for the post of President, have decided to back opposition nominee Gandhi.
Though the JD(U) has broken ties with the ‘Mahagatbandhan’ and joined hands with the BJP to form a new government in Bihar, it has decided to vote for Gandhi, a former governor of West Bengal.
The term of the present incumbent Hamid Ansari, who has held the post for two consecutive terms, is coming to an end on August 10.
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