Opposition gathers flock, but fails to stand united in V-P polls

Considering the arithmetic in both the Houses, the outcome of the Vice-Presidential election was foretold. The goal for the Opposition was thus to ensure that its candidate, Justice B. Sudershan Reddy, managed to reduce the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s nominee C.P. Radhakrishnan’s victory margin.

Despite best efforts, chinks in Opposition unity were exposed, with calculations indicating that the NDA got at least 13 votes more than its strength in the two Houses. The NDA and MPs aligned to the government put together stood at 439, Mr. Radhakrishnan got 452 votes. 

Despite the fact that there was no whip in the Vice-Presidential polls, the Opposition managed to get all its members to cast their ballot. Underscoring the importance of the elections, two Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha members – Sudip Bandhopadhyay and Saugata Roy – came to vote despite being ill. MPs who were abroad, such as Congress’s Lok Sabha members Imran Masood who was in Medina, Saudi Arabia, and Ve. Vaithilingam, who was in the U.S., and Rajya Sabha MP Imran Pratapgarhi, who was in Australia, returned in time to vote. 

The Congress had appointed 10 coordinators to track down each MP and ensure 100% attendance. By 2 p.m., the majority of the Opposition members had voted. Frantic calls were made to the few remaining who had not turned up till then, including newly elected Rajya Sabha member Kamal Hasan. Many regular absentees such as Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh made a rare appearance.

Till minutes before the results were announced, the Opposition was expecting at least 315 votes.

At 5.14 p.m., Congress General Secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh posted on X, “The opposition has stood united. All of its 315 MPs have turned up for voting. This is an unprecedented 100% turnout.”

Going by this claim, the Opposition still fell short of 15 votes. One Opposition leader said that all the 15 votes that were invalidated due to various reasons were Opposition votes, while another speaking on condition of anonymity did not rule out crossvoting. “While most of the invalidated votes may have been due to inadvertent error on part of the MP, some we suspect were also deliberate,” he said.

Each party is now busy claiming that they had no cross-voters in its camp.

The loss by 152 votes in the 2025 Vice-Presidential elections is the narrowest defeat for the Opposition in these polls since the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014. In the 2022 polls, the NDA nominee Jagdeep Dhankhar won by a margin of 346 votes and, in 2017, Venkaiah Naidu won by 272 votes.