In the Vice President election, NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan won, defeating INDIA’s Sudarshan Reddy by 152 votes. Radhakrishnan secured 452 votes, while Sudarshan Reddy got 300. Reddy received fewer votes than anticipated, as the INDIA alliance had hoped for more. The alliance has 315 MPs in Parliament but fell 15 votes short.
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh posted on X, stating that the opposition was united, with all 315 MPs present for voting. This indicates that the opposition was 15 votes short. Each party is now focusing on claiming that there was no cross-voting from their side.
The NDA has 427 MPs and received an additional 25 votes. There are 788 MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha combined, with 781 eligible to vote and 7 seats vacant. The NDA has 427 MPs out of the 781, and the opposition has 354, including 315 from the INDIA alliance. The voting decisions of the 39 MPs not affiliated with either the NDA or the INDIA alliance are crucial.
Despite the absence of a whip in the Vice President election, the opposition managed to get all of its members to vote. Illustrating the significance of the elections, Trinamool Congress MPs Sudeep Bandopadhyay and Saugata Roy, despite being ill, came to vote.