Vice Presidential election: Over 98 pc turnout; counting of votes underway

NEW DELHI — Counting of votes in the vice presidential election began at 6 PM on Tuesday after over 98 per cent of MPs exercised their franchise in the contest between NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and joint opposition candidate B Sudershan Reddy.

The counting was underway in the new Parliament building under the supervision of Returning Officer P C Mody, Rajya Sabha Secretary General. The results will be announced late evening.

The polling concluded at 5 PM with over 98 per cent of votes being cast in the election, official sources said, adding 12 MPs out of 781 did not vote.

Brisk voting was witnessed earlier in the day, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi being the first to cast his ballot.

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Modi, accompanied by Union Ministers Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Jitendra Singh and L Murugan, cast his vote in the polling booth in Room No. 101 Vasudha in the Parliament building.

Members of both Houses of Parliament are eligible to cast their votes in the Parliament House.

MPs in large numbers queued up in the new Parliament building since morning.

"Voted in the 2025 Vice President election," Modi said in a post on X, before embarking on a visit to flood-hit states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.

Among the early voters were Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Meghwal and Pralhad Joshi, Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson Harivansh, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav, and Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Nasser Hussain.

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The 92-year-old Gowda arrived at the polling booth in a wheelchair. Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge were seen walking hand in hand to the polling booth.

The poll is witnessing a direct contest between Radhakrishnan and Reddy, with the ruling NDA having a clear edge in the poll necessitated by the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar.

"I am only trying to awaken the conscience of the people. This is a fight for the Constitution; it will continue. I thank the people for the love I got and the response of the civil society," Reddy, the joint opposition candidate for the vice presidential poll, said.

Union Ministers Rijiju and Ram Mohan Naidu, along with Shiv Sena Lok Sabha member Shrikant Shinde, have been appointed as official election agents of the ruling NDA for the election process.

"We are not just assured, but confident of victory," Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told reporters as the polling got underway.

Members of Parliament are not bound by party whips to vote in the vice presidential election, which takes place under a secret ballot system.

Speaker Om Birla and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar cast their vote after 2 PM.

Prominent among others who exercised their franchise were TMC's Saugata Roy, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Shatrughan Sinha and Abhishek Banerjee, besides Harbhajan Singh (AAP) and Congress leaders Kumari Selja and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Lok Sabha MP from Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla, Engineer Rashid, arrived in police custody to vote following permission from a court.

Rashid, 58, has been lodged in Tihar jail since 2019 after he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a 2017 terror funding case.

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.