National Democratic Alliance (NDA)'s Jagdeep Dhankhar has emerged victorious in the two-headed Vice Presidential election on Saturday, 6 August, defeating the Opposition candidate Margaret Alva.
"NDA candidate Jagdeep Dhankar won by 346 votes as he bagged 528 of the total 725 votes that were cast. While 15 were termed invalid, Opposition candidate Margret Alva received 182 votes in the election," Utpal Kumar Singh, Lok Sabha Secretary-General, told reporters.
"Out of 780 electors comprising elected and nominated members of the Rajya Sabha and elected members of Lok Sabha, 725 electors cast their votes. The total voter turnout was 92.94 percent," he announced.
Dhankhar will take oath of office on 11 August.
Voting had ended at 5 pm on Saturday, at Parliament House. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, and Jitendra Singh, had cast their preferences soon after polling had begun at 10 am.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, MP Shashi Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh, Mallikarjun Kharge, Railways' Ashwini Vaishnaw, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also voted in the poll.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi casts his vote for the election of the Vice President, at Parliament House in New Delhi, Saturday, 6 August, 2022
(Photo: PTI)
Ace Lawyer, Jat Leader, Mamata's Nemesis: Jagdeep Dhankhar Had Majority's Support
An ace lawyer and Jat leader, Jagdeep Dhankhar has practised in the Rajasthan High Court and the Supreme Court. In 1989, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Jhunjhunu on a Janata Dal ticket, and later joined the Congress.
Dhankhar then joined the BJP in 2003. He was made governor of West Bengal in 2019, where he had frequent run-ins with the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government.
The vice president-designate had the support of some regional parties like the Janata Dal (United), Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and Shiv Sena, in addition to that of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The NDA nominee was predicted to get over 515 votes, while Alva's vote count was estimated to be around 200. She had the support of the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen.
Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress abstained from voting.
Like the president of India, the vice president, too, is elected by the Members of Parliament (MPs) from both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha – total 788 in number.
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