The Election Commission on Friday said that the election to the post of Vice President, which fell vacant due to the surprise resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar on July 21, will be held on September 9.
The poll panel, in a statement, said that the notification for the Vice Presidential election will be issued on August 7, while the last date of filing nominations will be on August 21. The scrutiny of nominations will take place on August 22, while the last day for withdrawal of nomination is August 25.
If there is more than one candidate, polling will be held in room number F-101, Vasudha, on the first floor of Parliament building on September 9 between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.
However, this will be the first time that a Vice Presidential poll will be held in the new Parliament building, as earlier polls for the post were conducted in the old Parliament building.
The Commission said that the counting of votes will also be held soon after the polling ends.
However, with the Opposition also set to name their candidate for the Vice Presidential candidate, a contest is on cards.
Earlier in the day, Congress General Secretary and Communications Incharge Jairam Ramesh said that the consensus is not created by the Opposition but the government, and there is “no consensus possible with Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
The electoral college for the Vice Presidential election consists of 788 MPs, including from Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha.
However, at present, the strength is only 782, owing to five vacancies in Rajya Sabha and one in Lok Sabha.
Meanwhile, the NDA has a clear-cut top hand in the electoral college with 427 in its support and the Opposition at least 323, including 12 AAP MPs who are not part of the INDIA bloc.
While there are around 30 other MPs who are not aligned to NDA or INDIA bloc.
The poll panel had earlier appointed Rajya Sabha Secretary General P.C. Mody as the Returning Officer for the Vice Presidential poll and Rajya Sabha Joint Secretary Garima Jain and Director Vijay Kumar named as Assistant Returning Officers on July 25.
The voting will be through a system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.
The winning candidate will require 391 votes if all eligible voters exercise their franchise and their votes are valid.
The voting is through secret ballot, and parties cannot issue a whip to MPs on voting. For marking their preferences in numerical, the EC will supply particular pens, and the MPs have to mark the ballot only with this pen and not with any other pen.
Dhankhar had surprisingly resigned on July 21, the first day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session, just hours after he presided over the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha.
He submitted his letter of resignation to President Droupadi Murmu, citing health reasons.
The Home Ministry notified his resignation on July 22.
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