New Delhi: The stage is set for a direct contest between ruling NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and joint opposition candidate B Sudershan Reddy for Tuesday’s vice-presidential election, with the BJP-led alliance having a clear edge in the poll necessitated due to the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Members of both Houses of Parliament will cast their votes in the Parliament House between 10 AM and 5 PM on Tuesday. Counting votes will begin at 6 PM, and the results will be announced late evening.
Members of Parliament are not bound by party whips to vote in the vice presidential election, which takes place under a secret ballot system.
The BJP-led NDA and the Congress-led opposition grouping held separate meetings with their respective MPs on poll eve to sensitise them about the election process and also held mock polls.
The MPs will be handed out ballot papers containing the names of the two contesting candidates and will have to mark their preference by writing the figure ‘1’ opposite the name of the candidate of their choice.
“The figures may be marked in the international form of Indian numerals or in the Roman form or in the form used in any Indian language but shall not be indicated in words,” the rules of the vice presidential election state.
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 in the election.
The present strength of the electoral college is 781 as six seats are vacant in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha. This puts the majority mark at 391. The NDA has 425 MPs, while the opposition camp has the backing of 324.
Among the political parties that are not part of the ruling or the opposition camps, the YSRCP, with 11 members in Parliament, has decided to support the NDA nominee, while the BRS and the BJD have decided to abstain from voting in the election.
While Radhakrishnan is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran from Tamil Nadu and the Governor of Maharashtra, Reddy is a former Supreme Court judge who hails from Telangana and is known for key judgements, including the one declaring Salwa Judum, a group of trained tribal youth deployed as special police officers to take on Naxalites, as illegal and unconstitutional.
The issue of Reddy’s Salwa Judum judgement spiced up the otherwise staid campaign for the vice presidential election with Home Minister Amit Shah claiming that the 2011 verdict was a setback to the efforts to fight Maoism in Chhattisgarh.
The vice-presidential poll has been described by the opposition as an ideological battle, even as the numbers are stacked in favour of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The NDA is projecting Radhakrishnan as an untainted leader with rich political and administrative experience for the vice president’s office and maintaining that these qualities would also prove to be useful as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
Radhakrishnan (67) served as a two-term member of the Lok Sabha from Coimbatore during the tenure of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and later went on to lead the saffron party in Tamil Nadu.
Reddy (79), who retired from the apex court in July 2011, is a veteran jurist known for several landmark judgments criticising the then Union government for showing slackness in probing black-money cases.
As an apex court judge, Reddy ordered the formation of a special investigation team to take all steps for bringing back unaccounted monies unlawfully kept in bank accounts abroad. Retrieving black money deposited in foreign banks was a key electoral plank of the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
In a fervent appeal to MPs ahead of the vice presidential polls, Reddy on Sunday exhorted them not to let party loyalty guide their choice and asserted that by voting for him, they would be ensuring that the Rajya Sabha stands as a true temple of democracy.
In a video message, Reddy told the MPs that this is not just a vote to elect their Vice-President but is a vote for the spirit of India itself.
Since the filing of nomination papers on August 20, Radhakrishnan has met MPs from all the states in groups and sought their support in the election, while Reddy has toured different states and met leaders of opposition parties.
Reddy’s meeting with RJD founder Lalu Prasad came under attack from the BJP which questioned the opposition candidate for meeting a person convicted in a scam.
The Congress-led INDIA bloc is projecting Reddy as a consistent and courageous champion of social, economic and political justice. Reddy has had a long and eminent legal career, including as a judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court and a judge of the Supreme Court.
He also led the committee that undertook the caste survey in Telangana.
