India Gets Its 13th Vice-President!

For the past two days, the latest news in India was M Venkaiah Naidu. The former Minister of Information and Broadcasting and Minister of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation under the incumbent government.  He was elected on August 05, 2017 as India’s Vice President.

Succeeding Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Naidu is the 13th Vice-President of India (elect). He is the third vice-president from the state of Andhra Pradesh. The previous two being Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and VV Giri.

As soon as the election results were out, most of the latest news on the web has been facts about India’s new vice president. Here are some of them.

1.    Venkaiah Naidu has been elected to the Rajya Sabha thrice from Karnataka and once from Rajasthan.

2.    He served as Minister for Rural Development in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 1999 BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

3.    Venkaiah Naidu was the seventh person to be elected as the national President of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

As the dates neared the vice presidential elections, the NDA conducted a workshop for its Members of Parliament on how to cast votes. The procedure to elect the vice president in India is quite similar to the election of the president of India.

Who Can Elect?

Only members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are permitted to vote in the election of the vice president of India. The election is held via secret ballot. Each eligible member is presented a special pen to vote. The votes made using other pens is disqualified.

What Are The Prerequisites For The Candidate?

1.    The candidate should be a citizen of India.

2.    The candidate should be over 35 years of age.

3.    The candidate should be eligible to become a member of the Rajya Sabha.

Apart from this, 20 eligible voters as proposers and 20 eligible voters as seconders should sign the nomination papers of the candidate.

On August 11, 2017, President Ram Nath Kovind will administer the oath of office to Venkaiah Naidu. We wish Mr Naidu the best for his term as the vice president of India.