• Source:JND
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Union Parliamentary Affairs minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday thanked the MPs from the INDIA bloc for their support (votes) in helping the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate secure victory in the Vice Presidential election. NDA’s CP Radhakrishnan was elected as the Vice President of India after defeating Opposition's candidate Justice Sudershan Reddy by 152 votes on Tuesday.

“Special thanks to some MPs of- INDI Alliance who voted with 'Conscience' for NDA candidate in the VP election. NDA and All our friendly MPs remain united,” said Kiren Rijiju in a post on X.

“The election of the Vice President was conducted through ballots. The voting was secret and done with conscience. Both voting and counting were carried out in the presence of representatives from both parties. Representatives from both parties were present throughout. No one can steal the heart and mind of the MPs,” Rijiju said in another post on X.

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Cross Voting In Vice Presidential Election

While Radhakrishnan got 452 out of the total 767 votes, Sudershan Reddy could only manage to win 300 votes.

While the NDA candidate's victory was anticipated given the clear majority the ruling alliance enjoys in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, some of the Opposition MPs have also voted for Radhakrishnan as he got more votes than what the NDA expected.

Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Mody, while providing details, stated that a total of 15 out of 767 votes were declared invalid. He further stated that Radhakrishnan got 452 votes, 152 more than his rival candidate, further stating that the majority mark was 377.

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The speculations of cross voting started as Radhakrishnan was expected to get a minimum 427 votes as per the current strength of both the houses. His tally was likely to improve after YSRCP had announced to support the NDA; however, he would have got 449 votes even after getting the votes of neutral and independent MPs.

Justice Reddy was likely to get 315 votes as all the INDIA-Bloc members had extended their support to the former Supreme Court judge. Even if all the 15 invalid votes belonged to the opposition MPs, Reddy was expected to get more votes than the result. The final result concluded that there were opposition MPs who voted for the NDA candidate for several reasons, including him belonging to Tamil Nadu.