Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 9: The opposition INDIA bloc has claimed that the decisions by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to stay away from the vice presidential poll was a setback to the ruling BJP.
Talking to reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday as the voting for the vice-presidential elections was on in Parliament building, the Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut expressed the confidence that the Opposition INDIA bloc votes would remain intact in the poll and the fight would be eventful.
Voting was underway on Tuesday to elect a new vice president, for which the contest is between NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and joint Opposition candidate B Sudershan Reddy. “The BJD, Akali Dal and BRS have consistently sided with the BJP government. These parties are not ready to vote for the NDA (in the vice presidential poll),” Mr Raut said.
However, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh on Tuesday criticised parties abstaining from or boycotting the Vice Presidential election, alleging that their stance amounted to support for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“They are supporting the BJP. They have not boycotted. It means they have supported Modi. Punjab and the entire country have come to know that in times of crisis like this, the Akali Dal is standing with the BJP. They say something outside, but stand together inside,” Mr Singh said.
The BJP MP Anurag Thakur expressed confidence in the victory of NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan in the Vice-Presidential election, asserting that he would win with a “full majority.” He remarked that the BJP-led NDA’s nominee is “very graceful” and has led a life “full of achievements.”
“Wait for the results. The candidate nominated by the BJP-NDA is very graceful; his life has been full of achievements. I am confident that he will win with a full majority. The country will get a new Vice President, and the Rajya Sabha will get a new chairman,” Thakur said.
Polling for the vice-president election, in which members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are eligible to vote, began at 10 a.m. in the new Parliament building and continue till 5 p.m. Counting of votes will begin at 6 p.m., and the result will be out later in the evening. By 3 p.m. itself, more than 96% of MPs had cast their votes. The first to cast his vote was the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was accompanied by Union Ministers Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Jitendra Singh and L Murugan to arrive at the Parliament building.
Though their declaration would make little difference to the poll arithmetic, three parties having a total of 12 MPs have announced that they will boycott the poll, which was necessitated due to the sudden resignation of Mr Jagdeep Dhankhar. The former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has announced that its MPs will abstain from voting.
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 any MP in the Lok Sabha.
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.
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.
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 422 MPs (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.
