Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and NDA’s nominee, Venkaiah Naidu have cast their vote to elect India’s 15th vice-president. Parliamentarians started voting on Saturday and the polling has begun at 10am. The results will be announced by Saturday evening.
With numbers in favor, the ruling NDA’s candidate Venkaiah Naidu is likely to be chosen as the vice-president. “NDA’s candidate (Naidu) is an experienced person, there’s no competition as such between us, only technically there is,” said Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
“It is a fight based on constitutional principles, where I maintained complete civility and the same has been done from other side too. Can’t call it one-sided as there were two candidates, Meira ji got a lot of votes but only one emerges as winner,” he added.
Naidu is contesting the poll against opposition candidate, Gopalkrishna Gandhi. As per calculations, Naidu is likely to get 514 votes while Gandhi may receive around 271 votes. The term of the current vice-president Hamid Ansari, who has held the post for two consecutive terms, will end on 10 August.
The vice-presidential election is conducted through a secret ballot. The members of Electoral College consisting of Parliamentarians vote. The MPs will use special pens for marking their candidate.
