Vice president election to be held on Saturday

NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu is tipped to succeed in the vice president election to be held on Saturday since numbers are in his favour in the electoral college.

The result of the contest between Naidu and opposition’s Gopalkrishna Gandhi will be announced around 7 in the evening after members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha cast their vote in Parliament house.

The NDA with its strength of 425 in both the Houses enjoys majority in an electoral college that has total 790 votes. In Lok Sabha alone, there are 340 NDA MPs while their number in Rajya Sabha is 85.

The polling trend this time, said BJP sources, would be much like what happened during President’s election as AIADMK, TRS and YSR Congress have pledged their support for Naidu as they did for Ram Nath Kovind. Except that, the BJD and the JDU, which has subsequently joined the NDA to rule Bihar, have stated that they would cast their ballot for Congress leader Gandhi. The opposition candidate is expected to get around 270 votes from 18 parties such as Congress, SP, TMC, CPM, DMK, RJD and BSP.

The MPs will use special pens to ink their individual choice during the polling. To avoid mistakes committed by the NDA lawmakers during presidential elections that had led to the cancellation of about two dozen votes, the ruling coalition held a dummy drill for its MPs on Friday evening in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and other leaders.

After it was over, Shah noticed that 16 MPs had still erred in putting a mark against the name of Naidu during the mock exercise and he cautioned them not to repeat it on Saturday.

Modi who addressed the gathering, urged the parliamentarians to evolve themselves to become more “responsible” to restore “dignity” of Rajya Sabha which he insisted was more important than establishing “parliament supremacy”. “The changes leaders should undergo post reaching parliament should be akin to that of daughters who get more matured and responsible after becoming daughter-in-law,” the PM narrated while expressing his anguish over the conduct of members in the Upper House these days.
The Vice president is also chairman of Rajya Sabha.

Modi also urged the MPs not to treat Naidu like a BJP leader after he dons the hat of VP but give all the respect and honour that a constitutional post deserved. Earlier, Naidu in an emotional speech said he was “humbled and obliged” to the party and leadership for giving him a chance to become the VP. He, however, reiterated that he would no longer belong to the BJP after the election but urged the lawmakers to strengthen the hands of Modi who wants to the country to realise its “full potential”.

If he is elected, the BJP politician from Andhra Pradesh would be second party leader after Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, to occupy the constitutional position.

Vice President Hamid Ansari retires on August 10 to end his ten years in office.