Hamid Ansari re-elected Vice-President of India

New Delhi, Aug 7: Hamid Ansari got elected as the Vice-President of India for the second term on Tuesday. He garnered 490 votes while his competitor, the NDA-backed Jaswant Singh got 238 votes. The 75-year-old Ansari, a former IFS officer, became the second Vice-President after S Radhakrishnan to be re-elected. He is the 13th Vice-President in all.

On Tuesday, a total of 740 MPs from both houses cast their votes in election. Forty-seven MPs did not cast votes, including Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who is critically-ill at the moment. Parliamentary Affairs sources said 21 members of the BJD, 11 of the TDP, six from Congress and other supporting parties, including Deshmukh and two nominated members did not vote. Besides, two MPs each from the BJP, RSP, AGP and TRS did not vote. YS Jaganmohan Reddy of the YSR Congress also did not cast his ballot.

BJP's Shatrughan Sinha was ill while Dilip Singh Judev could not arrive for the voting because his mother was ill. Kakoli Dastidar and Kabir Suman of the Trinamool Congress and Brij Bhushan Singh of the SP were abroad.

Three seats in the 790-member electoral college for the vice-presidential election are lying vacant after Pranab Mukherjee became the President while Vijay Bahuguna the chief minister of Uttarakhand. The election of J Shanta of the BJP has been set aside by the court.

The polling started at 10 am and brisk polling was seen till 1 pm. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi voted early while LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav voted later in the day. New MPs like Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha were also seen voting.

The BJD, TDP and RSP, which have 34 MPs in all, had already declare their intention of abstaining from voting.

Jaswant Singh, who served as the ministers of external affairs, defence and finance in the past, had the support of the NDA and AIADMK.

OneIndia News