C.P. Radhakrishnan vs B. Sudershan Reddy: Who will be India’s new vice president? Voting begins at 10 am

The stage is all set for the vice president elections which will witness a direct contest between National Democratic Alliance nominee C.P. Radhakrishnan and INDIA bloc candidate B. Sudershan Reddy.

 

The NDA has a clear edge in the electoral college which comprises members of both houses of parliament. The ruling alliance has 293 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 129 MPs in the Rajya Sabha, making their tally 422. The Congress led Opposition bloc has only 316 votes while the total strength of both houses is 781.

 

The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Odisha, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) of Punjab, and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) of Telangana are likely to abstain from the voting. However, this is unlikely to make any significant impact on the outcome.

 

There are 39 MPs who are unaligned to the two main blocks. Among them, the YSR Congress has announced its support to Radhakrishnan, while the AIMIM’s sole member, Asaduddin Owaisi, has pledged his vote to Reddy.

 

Radhakrishnan, a former president of the Tamil Nadu BJP, is the current governor of Maharashtra, while Reddy is a former Supreme Court judge.

 

Both the NDA and the INDIA bloc held separate meetings at the parliament complex on Monday, where they ‘trained” their respective MPs about the election process and also held mock polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the NDA meeting.

 

The polling, which is conducted under a secret ballot system, begins at 10 am and will continue till 5 pm. Counting of votes will begin at 6 PM, and the result will be out later in the evening.

 

Modi would be among the first ones to cast their votes as he has to leave for Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to take stock of the flood situation.

 

Election for the second highest constitutional post was necessitated by the surprise resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar who put in his paper on July 21, on the first day of the monsoon session of parliament.

India