Voting for V-P post on Sept 9
NDA meeting in Delhi a day ahead of polling
JAMMU, Sept 7:
Three Members of Parliament (MPs) of the BJP from the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh including two elected and one nominated will vote for NDA candidate C P Radhakrishnan in September 9 Vice Presidential election while two National Conference and two Independent Lok Sabha members are yet to make formal announcement of support but there are indications that they will support INDIA bloc nominee B Sudershan Reddy.
Four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir are vacant for more than four and a half years.
While the BJP stand is clear, ruling National Conference has not made any official statement but chances are that they will back INDIA bloc nominee.
A senior NC leader said the INDIA bloc decision on putting up candidate for the Vice President’s post was taken at a meeting attended by NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah and, therefore, the party stand is known.
Independent Lok Sabha Member from J&K, Engineer Rashid from Baramulla, who is in Tihar jail, has been granted permission by the Court to cast vote for the Vice Presidential election but his stand too is not known.
Ladakh has lone MP Haji Hanifa Jan, who was elected in 2024 Parliamentary election as an Independent candidate, but was affiliated with National Conference and is likely to vote for the INDIA bloc candidate. Jan couldn’t be contacted for his comments.
BJP has two MPs including Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma. Ghulam Ali Khatana, a nominated Rajya Sabha member also belongs to the BJP which will give the NDA candidate three votes from J&K.
The J&K UT has five Lok Sabha and four Rajya Sabha seats while the UT of Ladakh has lone Lok Sabha seat.
All four Rajya Sabha seats from J&K are vacant.
Sources said the NDA MPs will meet in New Delhi on September 8, a day ahead of the voting for Vice Presidential poll. Polling will be held on September 9 and the result will be declared the same day. Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members formed Electoral College for the election.
This is for the second time in the Vice President election that four Rajya Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir will not be able to cast their votes as the seats remained vacant since February 2021, first in the absence of Assembly and then due to delay in conduct of elections.
Last election to four seats of Rajya Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir was held in February 2015 when the then BJP-PDP alliance won three seats and NC-Congress one. Fayaz Ahmad Mir and Nazir Ahmad Laway (both PDP), Shamsher Singh Manhas (BJP) and Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Chief Minister of J&K and then in Congress were elected. BJP’s Chander Mohan Sharma had lost the election.
All these four Rajya Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir completed their six years term in February 2021. Since then, there has been no elected MP from J&K in the Rajya Sabha initially because of absence of Assembly and now due to delay in conduct of elections to fill the vacancies.(Courtesy Daily Excelsior)