Vice Presidential Election (Vice Presidential ) 

Delhi: The 17th election for the 15th Vice President     (Vice Presidential )    of India will be held on 9th. Voting will take place and the result is expected by evening. NDA’s Vice Presidential candidate is CP Radhakrishnan, while P Sudarshan Reddy is in the fray from the opposition’s India Alliance. For information, let us tell you that Jagdeep Dhankhar suddenly resigned from the post of Vice President on 21st July citing his health conditions, after which this post became vacant and now its election is being held.

Now the most important thing is to know how the Vice Presidential election is held in India, who casts the vote? And if a member of a party votes for the candidate of the opposition party, can action be taken against him? Let us know what happens from the election to the result and after that?

How and where will the voting take place?

As we have already told that in this Vice President election, there are two candidates from both the ruling party and the opposition and Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Modi has been made the Returning Officer for the voting. Voting for the Vice President election will be held in Room No. F-101, Vasudha of Parliament House from 10 am to 5 pm on Tuesday and counting of votes will start one hour after the voting ends i.e. at 6 pm and then the winning candidate will be announced.

Who can cast the vote?

In the election for the post of Vice President, members of both the houses of Parliament – Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha will cast their votes and along with this, nominated members of Rajya Sabha can also vote. This time, for the election for the post of Vice President, the electoral college consists of 233 elected members of Rajya Sabha (six seats are vacant at present), 12 nominated members of Rajya Sabha and 543 elected members of Lok Sabha (one seat is vacant at present). There are a total of 788 members in the electoral college (currently 781).

What is the voting process

Talking about the voting process for the post of Vice President, voting for it is done in a secret manner through Single Transferable Vote System (STVS). The ballot papers issued for voting are white in colour, which have two columns, in one of which the names of the candidates in Hindi and English and in the other column there is a blank space for voting. In the blank space, voters have to enter their preference as 1,2… It depends on the voter whether he enters it in Hindi or English.

Now know the method of voting

The members of the electoral college have to appear in person and cast their secret vote and no one’s help can be taken while casting the vote. If any MP is in preventive detention, then only he can cast his vote by post. Like in this time’s Vice President election, Sheikh Abdul Rashid (Baramulla) and Amritpal Singh (Khadur Sahib) can vote for postal ballot because both these members are in jail.

How are the votes counted?
After voting, the process of counting the votes begins, in which the valid votes are sorted first, the first priority votes are counted first among the valid votes. If a candidate gets more than 50% of the total valid votes, he is considered the winner. On the contrary, if no candidate gets majority in the first round, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. His votes are transferred to other candidates according to the next priority and this process is repeated until a candidate gets the majority.

Why is voting special, it is important to know these things

The election of President and Vice President in the country is not fought on any party symbol and neither does any party issue a whip for its members.

For this reason, all the members can vote for anyone according to their wish and the provision of anti-defection law is not applicable for anyone.

The biggest thing is that if a candidate gets less than one-sixth of the valid votes in the Vice Presidential election, then his security amount of Rs 15,000 is confiscated.

The results of the Vice Presidential election can also be questioned by filing a petition in the Supreme Court.

The petition can be filed by any candidate or 10 or more members of the electoral college.

The results can be challenged only within 30 days.

What facilities does the Vice President get?

The Vice President does not get any regular salary directly. However, he receives salary for the role of ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament.

After the amendment in 2018, the Vice President gets a salary of Rs 4 lakh per month. Apart from this, a large and beautiful free residence is available. Many facilities are given including daily allowance, travel allowance, rail and air travel, landline phone, mobile phone. The Vice President and his family get free medical facilities. A large staff is provided for 24-hour high security. Private secretary and other staff are also provided. After retirement, 50 percent of the salary is received as pension. The former Vice President gets a pension of about two lakh rupees per month. A Type-8 bungalow, a private secretary, an additional private secretary, a personal assistant are also provided. A doctor, a nursing officer and four private nurses/attendants are also provided. On the demise of the former Vice President, the spouse has the right to a Type-7 residence for life.