New Delhi: Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan was elected the fifteenth Vice-President of India Tuesday, defeating Opposition candidate Justice (retired) B. Sudershan Reddy by a margin of 152 votes, the narrowest victory for a V-P candidate since 2002.

Whereas the NDA nominee’s win was a foregone conclusion given the ruling coalition’s numerical energy, the Opposition sought to ship out a message of unity, by getting each MP from its ranks to again Justice Reddy in what was framed as a battle of ideologies.

Nevertheless, Justice Reddy acquired 300 votes, indicating that there was cross-voting in Radhakrishnan’s favour, denting the Opposition’s effort to mission unity.

The Congress attributed the dip to votes of Opposition MPs being held invalid. However NDA pulling greater than anticipated votes recommended that some Opposition MPs backed Radhakrishnan.

The electoral school comprised 781 members. Nevertheless, with two unbiased MPs and 12 lawmakers from the BJD, BRS, and Shiromani Akali Dal abstaining—citing their stance of sustaining “equal distance” from each the ruling NDA and the Opposition’s INDIA bloc—ultimately 767 MPs voted.

At 7.30 pm, Rajya Sabha Secretary P.C. Mody introduced that 752 votes had been held as legitimate, whereas 15 had been declared invalid, making 377 the midway mark. Mody stated Radhakrishnan bagged 452 votes, whereas 300 votes had been forged in Justice Reddy’s favour.

The Opposition was anticipated to bag 324 votes, counting six unbiased MPs aligned with the bloc, whereas the NDA had the backing of 432 MPs, together with events not formally a part of the alliance within the alliance, such because the YSRCP.

Radhakrishnan’s principal problem will now lie in steering the Rajya Sabha as its chairperson with out being seen as somebody whose ideological predilections override his constitutional mandate to behave as an neutral arbiter, one thing his predecessor Jagdeep Dhankhar was accused of getting did not do.

In an announcement, his first after resigning, Dhankhar congratulated Radhakrishnan.

“Your elevation to this august workplace displays the belief and confidence by the representatives of our nation. Given your huge expertise in public life, underneath your stewardship, the august workplace would definitely attain higher veneration and glory,” he wrote to Radhakrishnan.

Within the run-up to voting, Justice Reddy and the Opposition campaigned for a “conscience vote”, noting that Vice-Presidential elections are usually not ruled by a celebration whip. In different phrases, MPs don’t face disqualification for voting in opposition to their social gathering’s alternative within the V-P polls.

Tuesday’s election to the nation’s second-highest constitutional workplace was necessitated by the sudden and dramatic resignation of Dhankhar on 21 July, through the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

Though Dhankhar cited medical causes for stepping down, political insiders counsel his resignation was the results of a severe breakdown in his relationship with the federal government, successfully forcing him to give up.

The obvious tipping level got here when Dhankhar, in his capability as Rajya Sabha chairperson, disclosed that he had obtained a discover from Opposition MPs looking for to provoke an impeachment movement in opposition to Justice Yashwant Varma.

The announcement reportedly displeased the federal government, which had meant to handle the delicate matter by itself phrases and management the political narrative surrounding the choose’s potential removing.

Having suffered politically from appointing somebody perceived as exterior its ideological fold, the BJP course-corrected. This time, the social gathering selected Radhakrishnan, a low-profile, loyal functionary with deep roots within the RSS, as its nominee, signalling a shift again to safer decisions for key constitutional positions.

That Radhakrishnan’s method will likely be starkly completely different from Dhankhar, who beloved the highlight, was evident within the run-up to Tuesday’s election. Radhakrishnan didn’t give any media interviews, nor did he make any official assertion, apart from thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Dwelling Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda for nominating him as NDA candidate.

As Radhakrishnan sought to remain above the political fray, the BJP management took the lead in attacking Justice Reddy, who described the V-P duel as a struggle between a liberal constitutional democrat and a quintessential RSS individual.

Dwelling Minister Shah himself led the cost in opposition to Justice Reddy, accusing him of weakening the struggle in opposition to Naxals by way of the 2011 judgment outlawing the deployment of tribal youths as Particular Police Officers within the struggle in opposition to Maoist insurgency. Justice Reddy defended himself, saying it was not his particular person judgement however that of an SC bench that had one other choose.

Within the 2022 elections, Dhankhar had defeated the Opposition candidate Margaret Alva by a margin of 346 votes, whereas in 2017, the BJP’s Venkaiah Naidu received by 272 votes in opposition to Gopalkrishna Gandhi fielded by the Opposition. Within the 2012 and 2007 elections, each received by Hamid Ansari, the victory margins had been 233 and 149 respectively.

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