Venkaiah Naidu to be next vice-president

Opposition parties don't rule out cross voting

M Venkaiah Naidu was on Saturday elected the 13th vice-president of India. The term of vice-president M Hamid Ansari ends on August 10. President Ram Nath Kovind will administer Naidu the oath of office next week. It would mark Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh members occupying the top four constitutional posts — that of the President, vice-president, prime minister and the speaker.

The electoral college to elect the vice-president comprises all the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members. Fourteen members remained absent and 11 ballots were declared invalid. Of the 760 valid votes, Naidu received 516 votes. Opposition candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi, supported by 19 parties, including Janata Dal (United), received 244 votes. Naidu won by a margin of 272 votes.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said Gandhi received 19 votes more than what their presidential candidate Meira Kumar had bagged, and this was a proof of Opposition unity being intact despite the ruling NDA having reached out to members of Opposition parties in the run up to the election.

However, Biju Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United) had voted for NDA candidate Kovind in the presidential poll. The two parties had announced their support to Gandhi. The combined Opposition on paper had a strength of more than 270 votes, which would suggest at least some of their members cross voted even if factoring for those who were absent and the invalid votes. Communist Party of India (Marxist) chief Sitaram Yechury said each Opposition party would take stock of whether their respective MPs cross voted.

Of the 14 absentees, most were from Opposition ranks. These were two members of Indian Union Muslim League, Trinamool Congress’s Kunal Ghosh, Tapal Pal, Protima Mondal and Abhishek Banerjee, Mausam Noor and Ranee Narah of the Congress, Udayanraje Bhonsale of the Nationalist Congress Party. Others absent were BJP’s Vijay Goel and Sanwar Lal Jat, nominated member Anu Aga, independent Nabha Kumar Sarania and Pattali Makkal Katchi’s Anbumani Ramadoss. Some of the members like cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and film actor Rekha, who have rarely been seen in Parliament in their nearly six-year-long tenure as nominated members, turned up to cast their votes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Opposition leaders and chief ministers congratulated Naidu on his election.”Coming from an agricultural background, I never imagined I would be here. Agriculture has no proper voice in Indian polity,” Naidu, the vice-president-elect, said.

“I am very humbled. I am also thankful to the Prime Minister and all party leaders for their support. I will seek to utilise the vice presidential institution to strengthen the hands of the president and secondly uphold the dignity of the Upper House,” he said.

Yechury said the combined Opposition backed Gandhi as theirs was an ideological fight to preserve and strengthen constitutional values. Gandhi congratulated Naidu and said the symbolism of the fight was in its affirmation of right to free thought to serve ideals of pluralism and secularism.

With the poll to elect the next vice-resident now complete, it is expected that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya would quit their respective Lok Sabha seats. The two need to quit their seats by mid-September.