Venkaiah Naidu is Vice President of India after comfortably beating Gopalkrishna Gandhi

New Delhi, August 05, 2017: It’s official. Venkaiah Naidu is going to succeed Hamid Ansari as the new Vice-President of India. Naidu’s victory was a foregone conclusion, the NDA candidate having the support of a majority of MPs who ally with the BJP.

The Election Commission said that 771 votes were polled, of which 760 were valid and 11 were valid. Venkaiah Naidu secured 516 and Gopalkrishna Gandhi 241 votes.

This means, that Venkaiha Naidu will become the 13th Vice President of India.

Naidu’s victory means for the first time since Independence, the PM, President and Vice-President, are from the BJP stable. For Naidu, it marks the culmination of a long political journey that began in Andhra Pradesh, when he came to the spotlight during the Jai Andhra movement. Now, Naidu will be the Chair of the Rajya Sabha, an ascension that will smoothen the ruling party’s efforts to pass legislation in the Upper House.

He became a prominent leader in Andhra Pradesh, and later arrived in the national stage putting in the hard yard for his party. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1998 from Karnataka.

Later, Venkaiah Naidu also served as two-time BJP President. Naidu is one of the most well-known Parliamentarians, and his panache for acronyms have become part of social media conversations in recent times.

Before resigning, he was the the Information and Broadcasting Minister in the Narendra Modi government.

A total 771 out of 785 MPs cast their votes today.

However, it has been revealed that 14 Members of Parliament (MPs) were not present during the voting process.
Two from BJP, two from Congress, two from Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), four from TMC, one from NCP, one from Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and two Independent.
Voting for Vice Presidential Election ended with a total poll percentage of 98.21%.

The winner of the polls will be appointed as the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The term of incumbent Vice-President Hamid Ansari, who held the position for two consecutive terms, will come to an end on August 10.

The Vice-President is selected through a secret ballot by the members of the Electoral College consisting of the members of both Houses of Parliament in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.

The nominated Members of Rajya Sabha as well as of Lok Sabha are also eligible to be included in the Electoral College and, therefore, are entitled to participate in the election.

Members of Parliament had to use special pens for marking their choice.

Votes marked with any other pen are liable to be rejected.

The ballot paper contained the names of the contesting candidates, but did not contain any election symbol.