Hamid Ansari re-elected 14th Vice-President of India

Hamid Ansari has been re-elected as the 14th Vice-President of India. He received 490 votes in his favour. His rival, BJP nominee Jaswant Singh polled 238 voted.

A total of 740 Members of Parliament cast their vote in the Vice Presidential election. Forty-seven out of the total 787 MPs in both Houses did not cast their votes, who include ailing Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh who is admitted to a Chennai Hospital in a critical condition.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said 21 members from BJD, 11 from TDP, 6 from Congress and supporting parties, including Deshmukh, and two nominated members did not cast their votes. Others who did not vote include two each from BJP, AGP, RSP and TRS and Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, one of the two members of YSR Congress.

BJP member Shatrughan Sinha was sick while Dilip Singh Judev could not come as his mother was not well. Trinamool Congress members Kakoli Dastidar and Kabir Suman were abroad. So was SP member Brij Bhushan Singh.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were among early voters. BJP leaders L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Murli Manohar Joshi, BSP supremo Mayawati and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav cast their ballots before noon.

BJD, TDP and RSP had declared that they would abstain from voting. The three parties together have 34 members in both Houses of Parliament. With the total number of voting members reduced to 752, the halfway mark for Ansari had become 377.

Jaswant Singh, 74. a former External Affairs Miniser and Finance, had the support of NDA and AIADMK.

- Asian Tribune -

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