Voting is underway for the vice presidential election on Tuesday, with the lawmakers choosing between the BJP-led ruling alliance’s pick of Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan and the INDIA bloc’s ex-Supreme Court judge, Justice B Sudershan Reddy.
Three parties, however, have announced that they will boycott the poll, which was necessitated due to the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Biju Janata Dal
Former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has announced that its MPs will abstain from voting in the vice presidential elections.
The party said the decision was taken as part of its policy of “maintaining an equal distance” from both the BJP-led NDA and Congress-led INDIA bloc at the national level.
The BJD has seven MPs in the Rajya Sabha — Niranjan Bishi, Sulata Deo, Muzibulla Khan, Subhasish Khuntia, Manas Ranjan Mangaraj, Sasmit Patra, and Debashish Samantaray. They don’t have an MP in the Lok Sabha.
Bharat Rashtra Samithi
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), led by former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, has also said it will boycott the election, citing “anguish” felt by the state’s farmers due to the shortage of urea.
“For the last 20 days, BRS has been warning both state and central governments about the shortage of urea. Yet they have failed to respond. As a mark of protest and in solidarity with 71 lakh Telangana farmers, BRS has decided not to participate in the Vice President election. If NOTA was an option, we would have chosen it,” party’s working president KT Rama Rao said.
The BRS has four MPs in the Rajya Sabha — Damodar Rao Divakonda Reddy, B Parthasaradhi Reddy, KR Suresh Reddy, and Ravi Chandra Vaddiraju, but no representation in the Lok Sabha.
Shiromani Akali Dal
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has also abstained from the vice presidential poll, saying it didn’t receive help from the Centre and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is in power in Punjab, to fight the “unprecedented” floods in the state.
“Punjab and Punjabis have always stood by the nation whenever and wherever there has been a crisis. But today, Punjabis themselves face a very severe crisis because of unprecedented floods. Almost one-third of the state lies submerged under water with houses and crops completely destroyed,” the party wrote on X.
“Neither the state government nor the Centre have come forward to help Punjabis in any way. The crisis is being fought by Punjabis in general and Sikhs in particular without any help from the state or the Centre,” it said.
Former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal is the lone SAD MP.
Vice Presidential Election: How Numbers Are Stacked
The electoral college for the vice presidential election comprises a total of 788 members — 245 from the Rajya Sabha and 543 from the Lok Sabha. The 12 nominated members of the Rajya Sabha are also eligible to vote.
The present strength of the electoral college is 781, as six seats are vacant in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha, making the majority mark at 391 in this election.
The NDA has 293 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 129 members in the Rajya Sabha, while the Opposition INDIA bloc has the backing of around 325 parliamentarians.
