CP Radhakrishnan faces Sudershan Reddy in high-stakes V-P polls: How numbers stack up for NDA and INDIA

Opposition has dubbed the vice-presidential election as an “ideological fight” even as the numbers are stacked in favour of the ruling NDA

Ruling BJP-led NDA nominee CP Radhakrishnan will face INDIA bloc candidate former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy in the vice-presidential polls today. The election has turned into a “south vs south” contest as Radhakrishnan hails from Tamil Nadu and Reddy from Telangana.

Opposition has dubbed the vice-presidential election as an “ideological fight” even as the numbers are stacked in favour of the ruling NDA.

Currently, there are 542 Lok Sabha MPs and 239 Rajya Sabha MPs, all of whom are eligible to vote.

With both ex-Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao's Bharat Rashtra Samithi announcing their decisions to stay away from the vice-presidential polls, the total number of MPs voting stands at 770, with the majority mark at 386.

The NDA has 425 MPs, therefore, BJP’s pick Maharashtra governor CP Radhakrishnan is seen as a clear winner. Meanwhile, YSRCP has also decided to extend its support to the NDA candidate, which adds 11 more MPs – including four in Lok Sabha and seven in the Rajya Sabha -- to the list.

Even in the absence of BJD and BRS, the NDA will have 436 votes, which could go up even further.

Another Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal -- whose relationship with her party AAP deteriorated last year after she accused Arvind Kejriwal’s aide Bibhav Kumar of misbehaving with her – could be added to the list of MPs who could side with the NDA.

The stance of seven independent MPs in the Lok Sabha remains unclear, as does that of the Akali Dal and Mizoram’s ZPM, both with one MP each.

If they all side with BJP nominee Radhakrishnan, he could garner 458 votes -- fewer than the 528 secured by Dhankhar in 2022, but sufficient to ensure a win.

Meanwhile, the opposition has 324 MPs, making it evident that even if BRS, BJD as well as the independents cited above turn to its side, the result would still remain unaffected.

Members of both houses of Parliament will cast their votes in the Parliament house between 10 am and 5 pm on Tuesday. Counting of 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.

Article 66 (1) of the Constitution provides that the election shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and the voting at such election shall be by secret ballot. In this system, the elector has to mark preferences against the names of the candidates.

“Preference can be marked in the international form of Indian numerals, in Roman form, or in the form in any recognised Indian languages. Preference has to be marked in figures only and shall not be indicated in words. The elector can mark as many preferences as the number of candidates. While the marking of the first preference is compulsory for the ballot paper to be valid, other preferences are optional,” the rules of the vice presidential election state.

The election was necessitated by the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar on the first day of monsoon session on July 21, citing health concerns.