Vice-President election: Numbers favour NDA's CP Radhakrishnan

The Vice Presidential election scheduled today (September 9) was never an even contest between NDA nominee CP Radhakrishnan and Opposition-backed Justice (retired) B Sudershan Reddy. On the eve of the polls, however, there were also signs that the contest wouldn’t be a fair one either.

The numbers in the Electoral College for the election, necessitated by the surprise resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar as Vice President on July 21, were always stacked in favour of the ruling NDA government. The Opposition, however, had hoped that its robust bench strength in Parliament, thanks to the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results, coupled with the change it presumed in equations between the BJP and its friendly ‘rivals’ – Naveen Patnaik’s BJD, K Chandrasekhar Rao’s BRS and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP – would tighten the race compared to Dhankhar’s landslide win against the Opposition’s Margaret Alva in the 2022 VP polls.

Who all will abstain from voting?

On Tuesday (September 8), those hopes of the Opposition stood shattered. The BJD, which has seven MPs in the Rajya Sabha, cast aside the electoral humiliation it had faced from the BJP in last year’s Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly polls and declared it would abstain from voting in the election.

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The BRS, with four Rajya Sabha MPs, chose the same path as the BJD, arguably wary of exacerbating the crisis brewing within its ranks since the revolt and eventual expulsion of Rao’s daughter, K Kavitha. The YSRCP, with 11 MPs, too made it clear that “there has been no change” in its previously stated stance of voting in Radhakrishnan’s favour; a decision that places Jagan Mohan Reddy on the same side of the political divide as his arch rival, TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

For the Opposition, which backed Reddy’s political debut at the late age of 79 years, the decision by the BRS and YSRCP would have pinched the most. The Opposition had hoped that the Telugu identity and pride Reddy shared with these two parties would convince at least some, if not all, BRS and YSRCP MPs to bolster the retired Supreme Court judge’s vote tally.

Sources in the BRS and the BJD confirmed to The Federal that the decision to abstain from voting was taken by the two parties after their respective party chiefs assured a senior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government that though political compulsions prevent them from voting in Radhakrishnan’s favour, they wouldn’t embarrass the Centre by voting for Reddy either.

Reddy's outreach

An Opposition leader who played a key role in convincing Reddy to take the plunge into the vice presidential contest, despite him having no political affiliations, ambitions or experience to date, told The Federal that “all attempts” by various stalwarts from the INDIA bloc to get Patnaik and Rao to “allow their MPs to participate in the election and vote as per their conscience” had failed. The leader claimed that the slight for Reddy was more pronounced when it came to his personal outreach to Rao and Jagan Reddy, as both party chiefs as well as a bulk of their MPs “refused to even answer (the Opposition candidate’s) calls and messages” soliciting their support for his candidature.

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Over the past 19 days of his campaign, Reddy, said sources involved with his outreach, had “personally reached out” to MPs from so-called unaligned parties, such as the BRS, BJD, YSRCP, Azad Samaj Party, AIMIM, BSP and the Shiromani Akali Dal. Of these, however, only Azad Samaj Party chief and Lok Sabha MP Chandrashekhar Azad and AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi assured Reddy of their support. The BSP and the Akali Dal, which have one member each in the Electoral College, were “non-committal” while the BRS, BJD and YSRCP MPs “did not respond” to Reddy’s direct overtures.

The ailing BJD chief Naveen Patnaik, who was in and out of hospital for most of the campaign’s duration, is learnt to have spoken to at least two senior leaders of the INDIA bloc but “expressed his inability” to vote alongside the wider Opposition.

In stark contrast to Reddy’s assiduous efforts to seek support for his candidature while simultaneously fending off personal attacks from BJP leaders like Union Home Minister Amit Shah over his landmark Salwa Judum verdict, NDA-backed Radhakrishnan, it is learnt, made “very few personal appeals for votes” to parties outside the NDA coalition.

“The numbers are with him, there was no need for him to directly reach out (to non-NDA parties),” said a senior member of the Modi Cabinet, who shares a personal rapport with Radhakrishnan, adding that the BJP leadership was “always confident that Reddy will not get a single vote from BJD, BRS and YSRCP”.

Another source involved with Radhakrishnan’s muted campaign told The Federal that the BJP was “hopeful of several Opposition members cross-voting” in favour of the NDA nominee as also of some Opposition votes being “declared invalid”.

Strength of Electoral College

This leader claimed, “during Dhankhar’s election, we had a much more comfortable majority (in the Electoral College) compared to what we have now but even then 15 Opposition votes were declared invalid and Margaret Alva lost by 346 votes; the contest is tighter this time because of their (Opposition’s) Lok Sabha strength but that is only on paper; let the votes be cast tomorrow and you will see that we will get more votes than our strength in Parliament”.

With the BRS and the BJD deciding to abstain from voting, the Electoral College now comprises 770 MPs. To win, Radhakrishnan requires just 386 votes as against the 391 votes he would have needed had all 781 MPs voted. Radhakrishnan was already assured of securing votes of all 425 MPs from the ruling coalition and this number is expected to go up with the YSRCP making its support for him clear.

Reddy, on the other hand, is confident of securing the 324 votes from the Opposition’s camp (INDIA bloc+ AAP+AIMIM+ASP+ some Independents), which is substantially higher than the meagre 182 votes that Alva had fetched in 2022. However, the Opposition’s hopes of narrowing the margin of defeat of its candidate any further by getting some votes from the BJD and BRS have now been dashed. The best it can hope for is to keep its own flock intact by preventing any cross-voting or the casting of ‘invalid votes’, deliberate or otherwise.

The only consolations that the Opposition can draw are from the fact that Reddy is expected to fetch more votes than Alva did in 2022 and that the BRS and the BJD, BJP's long-standing 'friendly foes' in Parliament, won't be voting for Radhakrishnan either.