NDA candidate and former West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar was on Saturday elected as the new Vice President of India.
He trounced his rival and Opposition candidate Margaret Alva — a former Union Minister and Governor — by garnering about three-fourths of the votes cast. In percentage terms, Dhankar secured 72.83 per cent of the vote share.
Dhankar’s win is bigger than that of outgoing Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, who had bagged 516 votes of the total 760 valid votes or 67.89 per cent vote share in 2017. He had defeated then Opposition candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi by a margin of 272 votes. Gandhi had secured 244 votes. Dhankar will be the 14th Vice President of India.
“NDA candidate Dhankar won by 346 votes as he bagged 528 of the total 725 votes cast. “While 15 were termed invalid, Opposition candidate Alva received 182 votes in the election,” Utpal Kumar Singh, Lok Sabha Secretary-General and the returning officer, said.
“Out of the 780 electors comprising elected and nominated members of the Rajya Sabha and elected members of the Lok Sabha, 725 electors cast their votes with the total voter turnout being 92.94 per cent,” Singh added.
Intriguingly, Alva got less than the expected around 200 votes from the Opposition camp while Dhankar received more than the little over 515 votes expected to be cast in his favour. Alva minced no words in making known her anguish. “Unfortunately, some Opp parties chose to directly/indirectly support BJP, in an attempt to derail the idea of a united oppn... damaging their own credibility,” Alva tweeted after the results even as she congratulated Dhankar.
The Vice President election was an opportunity for the Opposition to leave the past behind, to work together, and build trust amongst each other, she maintained.
Notably, the 39-MP-strong Trinamool Congress (TMC) had announced it would abstain from voting as it said the 17 Opposition parties had finalised Congress veteran Alva’s candidature without consultations with it. But despite TMC’s announcement, its MPs Sisir Kumar Adhikari and Dibyendu Adhikari — father and brother of BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari— defied the party line and cast their ballots.
While the 71-year-old Dhankhar is a Jat leader from Rajasthan with a socialist background, 80-year-old Alva is a Congress veteran and has served as Governor of Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. As congratulatory messages poured in, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first to meet and congratulate Dhankar. His Cabinet colleagues and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla met Dhankar thereafter.
President Droupadi Murmu took to Twitter to congratulate him, “Congratulations to Dhankhar on being elected the Vice President of India. The nation will benefit from your long and rich experience of public life. My best wishes for a productive and successful tenure.”
“I thank all those MPs who have voted for Dhankhar. At a time when India marks Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, we are proud to be having a Kisan Putra Vice President who has excellent legal knowledge and intellectual prowess,” the PM tweeted later.
