CP Radhakrishnan, the nominee of the BJP-NDA coalition, won the vice presidential election. By 152 votes, he beat B Sudarshan Reddy, the opposing parties’ joint candidate.
Reddy received 300 votes, whereas Radhakrishnan, an NDA contender, received 452. It was determined that 15 of the 767 MPs that cast votes in the vice presidential election were illegitimate.
CP Radhakrishnan, the victorious candidate of the ruling BJP-NDA coalition, has won an outstanding win and is now the nation’s fifteenth vice president. By a margin of 152 votes, Radhakrishnan beat former Supreme Court Justice B Sudarshan Reddy, the joint candidate of the opposition parties, in Tuesday’s vice presidential election.
Reddy, the joint opposition candidate, received just 300 votes, which is fewer than the total number of votes cast by the opposition. In contrast, NDA candidate Radhakrishnan received 452 votes. When the governing alliance gained a large number of votes following Radhakrishnan’s election as vice president, the BJP immediately accused the NDA of cross-voting. On the other hand, the opposition party said that all of its members of parliament cast ballots and shown solidarity.
The polls closed at 5 p.m.
Radhakrishnan’s votes, however, make it quite evident that some opposition members had cast multiple ballots, since Reddy’s vote total stayed at 300 even after 315 members cast ballots. The election officer, Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Modi, declared the results at 7:30 p.m., after the voting for the vice presidential election concluded at 5 p.m. and the vote count started at 6 p.m.
The Law Ministry and the Election Commission have received the election results and will take the appropriate action. 767 of the 781 MPs now serving in both chambers participated in the vice presidential election, yielding a 98.2 percent voting rate. Fifteen votes were deemed invalid in this. Thus, Reddy received 300 votes and Radhakrishnan received 452 of the 752 valid votes. Political equations indicate that the opposing parties garnered 324 votes, and even if some of those votes were ruled illegitimate, Sudarshan Reddy still earned fewer votes than anticipated.
Fourteen members abstained from voting
The Law Ministry and the Election Commission are finishing up the procedures after the results announcement. President Draupadi Murmu would then administer the oath of office and secrecy to the selected Vice President Radhakrishnan once the oath ceremony is over.
Biju Janata Dal, Bharat Rashtra Samiti, and Akali Dal all proclaimed their intention to stay neutral in the vice presidential election; as a result, their MPs and a total of 14 members abstained from voting. 788 members from both houses of Parliament make up the electoral college for the vice presidential election. Currently, seven seats—six in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha—are up for grabs.
Voting for the Vice Presidential election started at 10 a.m. at the Parliament House’s Vasudha Room amid political commotion. The first person to exercise their right to vote and cast a ballot was Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After casting his ballot, PM Modi, who arrived at the voting station with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Jitendra Singh, departed for his tour of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. All of the MPs from the opposition and governing parties had arrived at Parliament House and were waiting in line to cast their ballots before the voting had started.
Many of the government’s top ministers, including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, and BJP President JP Nadda, also voted during this period. The opposition camp’s senior leaders, however, were as engaged and passionate. In the beginning, many key opposition MPs, including Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party President Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, SP chairman Akhilesh Yadav, and Sharad Pawar, also came to cast their ballots.
MPs were seen being cordial and courteous to one another.
The MPs from the government and opposition parties who came to vote were seen being cordial and kind to one another despite the in-person rivalry for this crucial position. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Rajya Sabha Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge gathered outside the polling booth, holding hands and conversing. Veteran politician and former prime minister HD Devegowda came in a wheelchair to vote.
Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra voted during the first hour of voting, however prominent figures such as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla voted after 2:00 pm. In police custody from Tihar Jail, Engineer Rashid, MP from the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat of Jammu & Kashmir, came to cast his ballot with the court’s approval.