Modi, Naidu, Sonia early voters in VP election

Parliamentarians queued up in Parliament House on Saturday to cast their votes to elect the next vice president.

NDA nominee and former union minister M Venkaiah Naidu is in a direct contest with joint opposition candidate and former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Naidu and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath were among the first voters to exercise their franchise as polling began at 10:00 a.m. The polling will continue till 5:00 p.m. and the counting of votes will be taken up at 6:00 p.m.

As many as 785 members of parliament are eligible to cast their vote in the vice presidential election. NDA poll managers are confident of getting 487 votes for Naidu.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi were also among the early voters.

In the presidential election, Ram Nath Kovind had polled 522 votes of Parliamentarians, while opposition nominee Meira Kumar could manage only 225. However, with JD(U) and BJD – who had voted for Kovind – declaring support to Gopalkrishna Gandhi the NDA numbers are expected to shrink from the 522 it had got in the presidential election.

As many as 21 votes of Parliamentarians were declared invalid due to the incorrect marking of preference in the presidential election.

Keen to avoid a repeat, the NDA had conducted a mock poll for its members on Friday with Modi giving a pep talk to them on exercising their franchise carefully.

The electoral college which elects the vice president, who is also the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, consists of elected and nominated members of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha.

The total strength of the two Houses is 790, but there are two vacancies each in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

A BJP MP in Lok Sabha is barred from casting vote following a judicial pronouncement.