NDA nominee Jagdeep Dhankhar was on Saturday elected as the 14th Vice- President of India, defeating joint opposition candidate Margaret Alva after securing 528 votes against his rival’s tally of 182.
Though the outcome of the vice-presidential contest was a foregone conclusion, Dhankhar’s victory was rich in symbolism as it signalled the continued dominance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP, with all key constitutional posts - President, Vice-President (who is also ex-officio Rajya Sabha Chairman) and Lok Sabha Speaker - held by the party.
It also dealt a body blow to the anti-BJP camp, which had pitched the VP polls as a battle of ideologies between “Constitution keepers and those who undermine it”, and whose claim to a grand opposition unity came apart in the run-up to the contest when Mamata Banerjee’s TMC broke ranks and decided to abstain from voting.
Dhankar, 71, swept the polls with 72. 8% of the 725 valid votes cast, his wining margin of 346 votes being the highest in the last six vice-presidential polls since 1997.
The record of the highest winning margin still remains with K R Narayanan, who got 700 of the 701 votes cast in 1992 against independent candidate Kaka Joginder Singh, alias “Dharti Pakad”.
Unlike incumbent Venkaiah Naidu, who demits office on August 10, Dhankhar is not a blue-blooded saffronite but drifted to BJP after starting his political career with Lok Dal and then having a stint in Congress.
The former Bengal governor’s victory came on the back of support from the NDA parties, which account for 441 MPs, five nominated members and non-NDA parties, including Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal, Jagan Mohan Reddy’ s YSR Congr ess, Mayawati’ s Bahujan Samaj Party, Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, Akali Dal and the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena, which together accounted for a total of 81 MPs.
Alva, on the other hand, had to settle for a significantly lower tally of 182, accounting for a paltry 25.1% of the valid votes cast. The opposition camp, incidentally, was expecting over 200 votes for Alva.
