Jagdeep Dhankhar to take oath as 14th Vice President of India, pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat

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At 11:45 a.m. today at Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Droupadi Murmu will administer the oath of office to elected Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar. On August 6, Dhankhar was chosen to serve as vice president. He triumphed by defeating Margaret Alva of the opposition.

The “Certification of the Election of Jagdeep Dhankar as the Next Vice President of India” was jointly signed on August 7 by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey.

With 528 votes to Alva’s 182, the BJP-led NDA candidate easily won the poll. The Vice President also serves as the Rajya Sabha’s official chairman.

Dhankhar received 74.36% of the vote. In the previous six vice presidential elections held since 1997, he had the largest margin of victory.

The vice presidential election’s returning officer reported that 725 of the 780 electors cast ballots, however 15 of them were later determined to be illegitimate. He stated that 92.94% of voters participated in the election and that 356 votes were required to win the election.

Trinamool Congress, which has 36 MPs overall, including 23 in the Lok Sabha, had not voted. Two of its MPs had, however, already cast their votes. Up to 55 MPs chose not to cast a ballot in the vice presidential election.

Dhankhar was born on May 18, 1951, into an agricultural family in a hamlet in the Jhunjhunu region of Rajasthan. He attended Sainik School in Chittorgarh for his last years of schooling. He continued his education at the University of Rajasthan for his LLB after earning his physics degree. He was a first-generation professional who rose to become one of the state’s top attorneys.

Dhankhar, 71, has experience practising law before both the Supreme Court of India and the Rajasthan High Court. After being chosen as a Member of Parliament for Jhunjhunu in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections on a Janata Dal ticket, he joined public life. In 1990, he also held the position of Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs. Initially, Devi Lal, a former deputy prime minister, had an impact on his political views.

Dhankhar, a member of the Jat clan, eventually changed his attention to state politics and was chosen in 1993 from the Kishangarh constituency in the Ajmer district to serve in the Rajasthan Assembly.

In 2019, Dhankhar was chosen to serve as the governor of West Bengal. On July 17, upon the announcement of his selection as the NDA’s vice presidential candidate, he tendered his resignation as governor of West Bengal.

Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha members make up the electoral college that chooses the vice president of India, the second-highest constitutional position in the nation.

Vice President also serves as the chairman of Rajya Sabha. At a time when there appear to be differences between the government benches and the opposition, Dhankar will preside over the proceedings of the Upper House of Parliament.

The presiding officers of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will be from Rajasthan as a result of Dhankhar’s election as vice president.