Shekhawat Elected Vice-President

The NDA candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was declared vice-president by a margin of 149 votes, clearly indicating crossvoting by the Opposition. The margin between the Opposition candidate, Sushil Kumar Shinde, and Shekhawat was originally calculated to be around 100. However, nearly 50 more Opposition MPs voted for Shekhawat.

Mamata Bannerjee and 10 other MPs from the Trinamul Congress stuck to their decision of boycotting the vice-presidential election. To prevent any unpleasant surprises, an orientation session on voting for BJP MPs, which took place at the Prime Minister's residence last night, appeared to have paid off, though in hindsight it seemed to have been redundant.

 

Last night, Mahajan had to explain to MPs with the help of a dummy ballot paper, not only how they should vote (