9th September, Tuesday: On Tuesday, September 9, voting is taking place for the Vice-Presidential election with lawmakers choosing between the BJP-led ruling alliance nominee, Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan, and the INDIA bloc nominee, former Supreme Court judge, Justice B Sudershan Reddy.
In this case, 12 MPs from 3 parties have declared that they will boycott the poll, saying this boycott was necessary as Jagdeep Dhankhar had resigned suddenly. Here are the details
From Biju Janata Dal
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD), led by former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, has declared that its members will not cast votes in the Vice-Presidential election. The party claimed that the move was made in accordance with its national policy of "maintaining an equal distance" from the Congress-led INDIA bloc and the BJP-led NDA. Niranjan Bishi, Sulata Deo, Muzibulla Khan, Subhasish Khuntia, Manas Ranjan Mangaraj, Sasmit Patra, and Debashish Samantaray are the seven members of the BJD's Rajya Sabha delegation.
From Bharat Rashtra Samithi
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), led by former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, has also decided to boycott the election, citing "anguish" felt by the state's farmers due to the shortage of urea's has four MPs in the Rajya Sabha -Damodar Rao Divakonda Reddy, B Parthasarathi Reddy, KR Suresh Reddy, and Ravi Chandra Vaddiraju, but no representation in the Lok Sabha.
According to an NDTV report, the party's working president, KT Rama Rao, said, "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 were an option, we would have chosen it."
From Shiromani Akali Dal
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has also abstained from the vice-presidential poll, stating 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. Former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal is the only SAD MP.
The party wrote on X, "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,"
There are 788 members of the vice-presidential electoral college (245 from the Rajya Sabha, 543 from the Lok Sabha, and 12 Rajya Sabha members who have been nominated). The majority mark in this election is 391 out of 781, as there are currently six open Rajya Sabha seats and one open Lok Sabha seat. About 325 lawmakers support the Opposition INDIA bloc, while the NDA has 293 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 129 in the Rajya Sabha.
