With the announcement of election of Vice President (VP) of India, ruling party in Chief Minister, Hemant Soren led State Government in the State, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on Wednesday announced to support the Opposition candidate Margaret Alva in the election for the post of Vice President.
The party President Shibu Soren has released the official letter of the decision of the party. He said that the party has taken this decision after deliberation. Chief Minister, Hemant Soren has directed all the MPs of the party to cast their votes in favour of Margaret Alva in the upcoming elections to be held on August 6.
Interestingly, JMM, despite being an Opposition party, had earlier supported the BJP-led ruling National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) candidate, and incumbent President, Droupadi Murmu, in the July 18 presidential election.
Soon after JMM's announcement, Alva took to Twitter to thank the party for extending their support to her. "I thank the leaders and the MPs of the JMM for their support in the Vice President’s election on August 6," she wrote.
Notably, the Opposition has fielded Congress' Margaret Alva as its vice-presidential candidate against National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) nominee Jagdeep Dhankhar.
The Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati earlier on Wednesday declared support for NDA’s Vice-presidential candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar. The BSP supremo made this announcement “in view of larger public interest”. Taking to her Twitter, she said, "It is well known that due to the lack of consensus between the government and the Opposition in the election for the post of the President of the country, the election was finally held for it. Now due to the same situation, the election for the post of Vice President is also going to be held on 6th August."
With Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu's term ending on August 10, the Election Commission announced that the election to the office of the vice-president of India would be held on August 6. In July, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led NDA proposed Union Minister and West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as their candidate for the position of Vice-President. The Opposition, barring TMC, announced Congress leader Margaret Alva as their joint candidate.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which is considered to be one of the key Opposition parties, gave a shock to the Opposition's unity by announcing its decision to abstain from voting in the Vice Presidential elections. Unlike presidential polls, in the vice presidential elections, only Members of Parliament (MP) are eligible to vote. However, in both cases, political parties cannot issue a ‘whip’, which means that an individual elector can even vote against his/her party's choice of candidate.