VP poll: Tightrope walk for NDA and INDIA Bloc to pick candidates

The Election Commission, on Friday (August 1) announced that the 17th vice-presidential election will be held on September 9.

With the poll panel’s announcement, consultations within the ruling NDA coalition and the Opposition’s INDIA bloc on choosing their respective nominees for the election are expected to start as early as next week, sources on both sides of the political spectrum told The Federal.

The election, initially scheduled for August 2027, had to be advanced due to the unexpected resignation of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on the night of July 21. Dhankhar had resigned citing “medical advice” but the circumstances and manner of his departure continue to evoke skepticism over the ‘real’ cause for his sudden exit from office just hours after he had wrapped up a day of hectic political activity in his ex-officio capacity as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

RSS also in the loop

With Dhankhar keeping his counsel on the matter, speculations over the likely trigger for his exit are now old hat. Sources in the government say “informal discussions” on vice-presidential probables had begun “within a day of Dhankhar’s resignation” at the very top echelons of the government and the ruling BJP’s ideological anchor, the RSS.

Also Read: Mystery of why Dhankhar resigned, and who will replace him as Vice President

These discussions, however, have thus far remained confined between the BJP-RSS leadership. What is expected to begin over the next few days are discussions between the BJP’s high command and the top leadership of the party’s key allies in the ruling coalition – TDP’s N Chandrababu Naidu, JD (U) chief Nitish Kumar, JD (S) chief HD Deve Gowda, among others.

Allies will be taken into account

Sources said while Modi anticipates “no trouble” from these allies over the choice of candidate, there may be a “difference in approach” when compared to how the Centre had narrowed down on Droupadi Murmu and Jagdeep Dhankhar as its candidates for the 2022 presidential and vice-presidential polls, respectively. Not in command of the brute BJP majority he enjoyed in Lok Sabha for the past decade, the Prime Minister, said sources, will be more mindful of suggestions coming from BJP’s allies instead of presenting them with a fait accompli, which had been the case when the BJP chose Dhankhar.

Signs of this altered political reality were also visible last month when President Murmu approved the appointment of new Governors. For the first time since Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, a leader from one of BJP’s allies – Ashok Gajapathi Raju of the TDP – was picked for a gubernatorial stint. As reported by The Federal on July 24, the BJP leadership would prefer to nominate someone from within the saffron fold even though it is not entirely averse to accommodating a nominee from among its allies.

Will Nitish be roped in?

The possibility of the BJP leadership convincing Bihar CM Nitish Kumar as the coalition’s candidate, however, remains too early. JD (U) spokesperson KC Tyagi has made it clear that Kumar is “unavailable” for the VP polls as he is determined to lead the NDA, once again, in the upcoming Bihar assembly poll campaign.

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Sources in the BJP say if the Prime Minister wishes to have one of his party colleagues ascend to the VP office, he would need a candidate who enjoys wide consensus and warm relations across not just the intertwined BJP-Sangh Parivar but the NDA parivar too. The PM will also need to factor in his party’s electoral considerations as he had done when Murmu’s candidature was hailed as a historic milestone for tribal women and Dhankhar’s nomination was wrapped in his twin identities of being a Jat by caste and kisanputra (son of a farmer) by lineage.

Not in command of the brute BJP majority he enjoyed in Lok Sabha for the past decade, the Prime Minister, said sources, will be more mindful of suggestions coming from BJP’s allies instead of presenting them with a fait accompli, which had been the case when the BJP chose Dhankhar.

Most importantly, though, as a senior BJP functionary pointed out, Modi would want a candidate who will “not betray his trust”; a scarcely veiled hint that Dhankhar, accused during his vice presidential stint by the Opposition of unprecedented servility towards the government, had lost the Prime Minister’s confidence.

Names in circulation

Since Dhankhar’s exit, multiple names of prospective candidates have been circulated by the BJP. This list includes but is not limited to leaders like Union defence minister Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda, whose extended stint as BJP chief has also been a subject of much chatter, and incumbent governors Arif Mohammed Khan, RN Ravi and Thawarchand Gehlot.

India Bloc candidate possible?

For the Opposition, the VP election presents a different set of challenges. Congress sources said the party will soon reach out to its allies in the INDIA Bloc to begin discussions on “forcing an election” even though the party knows that an Opposition candidate will “stand no chance” in the election. As it had done in the 2022 presidential and vice presidential polls, the Congress is keen on pitting the September 9 election not as a fight against individuals but ideologies. The unresolved question, though, is how many of the INDIA Bloc’s constituents and outfits that aren’t aligned either to the NDA or the INDIA coalitions will the Congress succeed in winning over to support a ‘joint Opposition candidate’.

“Wait for a few days; the schedule has been announced only today. We had announced last month itself that top leaders of all INDIA parties will be meeting in August sometime. Though at that time, there was nothing of this type (need for a VP election), now that it is there, we will discuss this also,” a senior Rajya Sabha MP of the Samajwadi Party told The Federal.

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Congress sources said the party high command had initially planned to have a meeting of the INDIA bloc leadership soon after the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament concludes on August 21. However, with August 21 now being set by the EC as the last date for filing nominations for the VP polls, the meeting would “need to be advanced” said a Congress MP close to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, while adding that “we wanted the next meeting of INDIA leaders to be a physical one but given the situation, if leaders are not available, we may have it virtually like our last meeting”.

Relief for Opposition

The Opposition can take some comfort from the fact that numerically its nominee is bound to fare better than Margaret Alva, the united Opposition candidate who had lost the 2022 vice presidential polls to Dhankhar by a massive 346-vote margin.

What the numbers say?

The electoral college (MPs from the two Houses of Parliament) for choosing the new VP currently comprises 782 MPs. The Rajya Sabha, which has a total strength of 245 MPs, currently has five vacancies (four from J&K and one from Punjab), while the 543-member Lok Sabha has one vacancy for the Basirhat seat of Bengal. The NDA and the nominated MPs in the Rajya Sabha who are expected to vote for the Centre’s choice make up 421 MPs. The INDIA bloc, including Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, which had surprised everyone in 2022 by abstaining from the election instead of voting for Alva, has 311 MPs.

Seasoned Opposition faces such as Sharad Pawar and Farooq Abdullah are ruled out, considering they had both been approached with the 2022 Presidential ticket and declined to accept it.

Thus, though the NDA’s bench strength in the Electoral College is above the current victory score of 391 votes, it is also over a 100 votes shy of the votes Dhankhar had polled in 2022. With just over 310 votes on its side at present, the Opposition alliance is 80 votes short of the victory mark of 391 votes. Yet, if the collective INDIA leadership acts unitedly and with the urgency that the situation demands in reaching out to non-aligned Opposition outfits such as Naveen Patnaik’s BJD, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP, Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP (no longer in the INDIA bloc), AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi, Azad Samaj Party’s Chandrashekhar Azad, K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s BRS and Mayawati’s BSP to secure their support for a United Opposition nominee, this 80-vote gap can be cut short almost by half. It may not clinch the VP’s post for the Opposition but it would embarrass the Modi regime and prove that the Opposition can still coalesce together despite its many differences.

The other big challenge for the Opposition is finding a suitable candidate. In the 2022 polls, the Opposition’s decision to back former BJP veteran Yashwant Sinha and Alva for President and Vice President, respectively, showed an utter lack of political imagination; one that did nothing to help the Opposition’s narrative against the BJP.

Seasoned Opposition faces such as Sharad Pawar and Farooq Abdullah are ruled out, considering they had both been approached with the 2022 Presidential ticket and declined to accept it.