Voting for the Vice Presidential election is to be held today on 6th August. Jagdeep Dhankhar (71) is a Jat leader from Rajasthan and was also a former Governor of West Bengal, while Margaret Alva (80) is a Congress veteran and has served as the Governor of Rajasthan.
Polling will take place between 10 am and 5 pm, followed by counting of votes on the same day. The next Vice President of India will take oath on August 11, a day after the tenure of current VP M Venkaiah Naidu ends. With the numbers in favor of NDA, former West Bengal Governor Dhankhar is set for an easy victory.
Read also: How is the Vice President of India elected? read here
Here are 10 points you need to know:
1. NDA candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar is set to win easily and the numbers are turning in his favour.
2. Cracks were visible in opposition unity as Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress decided to abstain from voting on Saturday, alleging lack of consultation in deciding Alva’s name.
3. The Members of Parliament of both the Houses shall vote in the election to elect the 16th Vice President of India.
4. With the support of some regional parties like Janata Dal (United), YSRCP, BSP, AIADMK and Shiv Sena, the NDA candidate is likely to get over 515 votes, enough for them to win a comfortable victory.
5. However, on Friday, two days after the Aam Aadmi Party and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) extended their support to the opposition candidate, Alva got the support of regional party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). AIMIM has also extended its support to Alva.
5. Alva is likely to get over 200 votes with the support declared by the parties for her candidature so far.
6. The Trinamool Congress, which has 23 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 16 in the Rajya Sabha, has decided to stay away from the Vice Presidential election.
7. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge also hosted a dinner on Thursday night to thank all the opposition MPs who supported Alva.
8. Dhankhar also met several BJP MPs at his residence on Friday. These include Sushil Kumar Modi, Gautam Gambhir, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Rajendra Agarwal, Pradeep Chaudhary and Kartikeya Sharma. He is meeting party MPs seeking their support for the elections.
9. In the election of the Vice President, the electoral college consists of a total of 788 members from both the houses of the Parliament. Since all voters are members of both houses of Parliament, each MP’s vote will have the same value – one, the Election Commission has said. A candidate needs 20 electors as proposers and at least another 20 electors as proponents for his nomination in the election of the Vice-President. The candidate will also have to make a security deposit of Rs 15,000
10. The elections of President and Vice President are closely monitored and there is no concept of open voting in this election. Voting to anyone is strictly prohibited under any circumstances in the case of presidential and vice-presidential elections, the Election Commission has cautioned, adding that parties cannot issue whips to their MPs in case of voting. Voting for the election of the Vice-President will take place in Parliament, unlike presidential elections where voting takes place in multiple locations because the elected legislators, not the nominated ones, are also part of the electoral college.
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