CP Radhakrishnan Vs B Sudershan Reddy: How Will India's Next Vice President Be Elected?

India will elect its 15th Vice President on September 9, with members of both Houses of Parliament casting their votes in a high-stakes contest. 

The contest is between the ruling NDA’s nominee, CP Radhakrishnan, against the opposition INDIA bloc’s choice, Justice (Retd.) B Sudershan Reddy.  

The election comes less than two months after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned from the post, citing health reasons. His abrupt exit created a rare mid-term vacancy in the country’s second-highest constitutional office. 

CP Radhakrishnan is rooted in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and is known as a non-controversial, soft-spoken figure within the party. He twice represented Coimbatore in the Lok Sabha in 1998 and 1999, making him the only BJP leader from Tamil Nadu to have been elected to the Lower House more than once. 

The Opposition’s candidate is Justice (Retd.) B Sudershan Reddy, a jurist from Telangana, backed by the INDIA bloc. He retired from the Supreme Court in 2011, and his judicial career is marked by verdicts critical of government inaction on black money and by his ruling that declared the anti-Naxal Salwa Judum movement unconstitutional. Reddy also served as Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court and later became Goa’s first Lokayukta in 2013. 

The strength of the electoral college for the vice-presidential election is 781 MPs — 542 in the Lok Sabha (with one vacancy) and 239 in the Rajya Sabha (with six vacancies). The majority mark is 391 votes. 

The vice presidential election is conducted under Article 66 of the Constitution and supervised by the Election Commission. The voting system is distinct from that used in Lok Sabha or Assembly elections. 

MPs mark their preferences for the candidates on a ballot paper, and the election is held by the system of proportional representation through the single transferable vote. This means that each MP can rank the candidates in order of preference. 

If no candidate secures a majority on the basis of first preferences, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated and their votes transferred to the remaining contenders according to the second preferences indicated. This continues until one candidate crosses the majority threshold. 

Voting is strictly by secret ballot, and the process is overseen by a Returning Officer, usually a senior parliamentary official. Polling will take place on Tuesday from 10 am to 5 pm, with MPs from both Houses of Parliament casting their votes in the national capital. Counting will begin at 6 pm, and results are expected the same evening.