Election for new Vice-President on August 10

New Delhi, July 5: The 13th Vice-President to succeed Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat will be elected on August 10, the Election Commission announced today.

The notification for the election will be formally issued on July 9. The last date of filing nominations is July 23.

The date for the scrutiny of nominations is July 24. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is July 26. Counting will be taken up on August ten at 1800 hours.

The election was necessary as the tenure of Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhat expired on August 18.

The Vice-President is elected by members of the Electoral College consisting of members of both houses of Parliament in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of a single transferrable vote. The nominated members of Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha are also eligible to be included in the Electoral College and, therefore, they are entitled to participate in the voting.

The Electoral College for election of the Vice-President consists of 233 elected and 12 nominated members of the Rajya Sabha and 543 elected and two nominated members from the Lok Sabha. All this counted together forms a total of 790 members of the electoral college.

The Election Commission, in consultation with the Central Government, has decided to appoint the Secretary General to the Rajya Sabha as the Returning Officer for the election. The Commission has also decided to appoint Assistant Returning Officers from among the officers of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat to assist the Returning Officer.

The nomination paper of a candidate must be delivered to the Returning Officer at New Delhi in the place to be specified by him by a public notice either by the candidate or by any of his proposers of seconders between 1100 hours and 1500 hours.

A nomination paper of a candidate has to be subscribed by at least twenty electors as proposers and at least twenty electors as seconders. An elector can subscribe to only one nomination paper of a candidate as either a proposer or seconder. The security deposit for the election is Rs 15,000/- (Rs fifteen thousand only), which is required to be made along with the nomination paper.

UNI

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