On Thursday, Jagdeep Dhankhar, a former governor of West Bengal and candidate for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), will take the oath of office as India’s next vice president.
At 11:45 a.m. today at Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Droupadi Murmu will administer the oath of office to elected Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar.
On August 6, Mr. Dhankhar was chosen to serve as vice president. He triumphed by defeating Margaret Alva of the opposition.
The “Certification of the Election of Jagdeep Dhankar as the Next Vice President of India” was signed on August 7 by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey.
Easily winning the poll with 528 votes against Margaret Alva’s 182 was the BJP-led NDA candidate. The Vice President also serves as Rajya Sabha’s official chairman.
Mr. Dhankhar won with 74.36%. He had the largest margin of victory in the previous six vice presidential elections conducted since 1997.
The vice presidential election’s returning officer reported that 725 of the 780 electors cast ballots. However, 15 of them were later determined to be illegitimate.
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He said that 92.94% of voters participated in the election and that 356 votes were required to win the election.
The Trinamool Congress, which has 36 MPs overall, including 23 in the Lok Sabha, had not voted.
Two of its MPs had, however, already cast their votes. Up to 55 MPs chose not to cast a ballot in the vice presidential election.
Dhankhar was born on May 18, 1951, into an agricultural family in a hamlet in the Jhunjhunu region of Rajasthan.
He attended Sainik School in Chittorgarh for his last years of schooling. After earning his physics degree, he continued his education at the University of Rajasthan for his LLB.
He was a first-generation professional who rose to become one of the state’s top attorneys.
The 71-year-old Mr. Dhankhar has experience in both the Rajasthan High Court and the Indian Supreme Court.
After being chosen as a Member of Parliament for Jhunjhunu in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections on a Janata Dal ticket, he joined public life.
In 1990, he also held the position of Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs. Devi Lal, a former deputy prime minister, initially impacted his political views.
Mr. Dhankhar, a member of the Jat clan, eventually turned his attention to state politics and was chosen in 1993 from the Kishangarh seat in the Ajmer district to serve in the Rajasthan Assembly.
In 2019, Mr. Dhankhar was chosen to serve as the governor of West Bengal. On July 17, after becoming the National Democratic Alliance’s vice presidential candidate, he announced his resignation as governor of West Bengal (NDA).
The Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha members make up the electoral college that chooses the vice president of India, the second-highest constitutional position in the nation.
The Vice President also serves as Rajya Sabha’s chairman. When there seem to be differences between the government benches and the opposition, Dhankar will preside over the proceedings of the Upper House of Parliament.
The presiding officers of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha will be from Rajasthan due to Dhankhar’s election as vice president.
