Voting to elect the new Vice-President of India began at 10 am on Tuesday, with the ruling NDA’s CP Radhakrishnan contesting against the INDIA bloc’s Justice B Sudershan Reddy.
According to reports, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to cast the first vote before heading to inspect flood-hit areas in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.
The voting will continue till 5 pm.
Counting of votes will begin an hour later, and by tonight, the country is expected to have its new Vice-President and the Chairman of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, also known as the Rajya Sabha.
The voting is taking place 50 days after former Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar stepped down from the post, citing health reasons.
With NDA’s CP Radhakrishnan having the numbers in his favour, he is expected to win the election without any significant challenge from the opposition candidate.
Indian PM Narendra Modi was one of the first persons to cast his vote.
Who is CP Radhakrishnan?
A politician from Tamil Nadu, Radhakrishnan is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He is currently serving as the Governor of Maharashtra. He assumed office on 31 July 2024.
In 1998, Radhakrishnan was elected as a Lok Sabha MP from Coimbatore on a BJP ticket. He was re-elected from the same constituency the following year.
He served as the BJP’s Tamil Nadu state unit president from 2001 to 2005.
A member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Radhakrishnan has earlier served as the Governor of Jharkhand.
He was also given additional charge as the Governor of Telangana and the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
