On Saturday, Jagdeep Dhankhar of the National Democratic Alliance beat Margaret Alva of the opposition to become India’s fourteenth vice president. Dhankhar received 528 votes to Alva’s 182 votes, giving him a commanding victory. There were 725 votes cast by lawmakers, or 92.9% of those eligible to vote, in the vice presidential race. However, according to the returning officer, Utpal Kumar Singh, 15 votes were deemed to be illegitimate.
On July 16, the NDA named Jadgeep Dhankhar, the former Union Minister and governor of West Bengal at the time, as its vice presidential candidate. The opposition announced a former union minister and governor of Goa, Rajasthan, and Gujarat as their joint candidate the very following day to challenge him.
Along with the NDA coalition partners, Dhankhar has the support of the governing YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati and the Biju Janata Dal of Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Odisha. Alva experienced a rift when Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress declared it would not vote in the election. She had anticipated having the backing of the opposition parties, which had backed Yashwant Sinha against Droupadi Murmi in the presidential elections.
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