Hamid Ansari has become the second person to be re-elected for another term as the Vice President of India after Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. He had crushed his adversary Jawant Singh, a nominee of NDA with a margin of 252 votes.
Ansari, 75 years old, was an IFS officer earlier. He bagged at least 490 votes as opposed to 239 of the total 736 votes that were polled.
46 of the total 787 MPs of the Upper and the Lower houses had cast their votes. Vilasrao Deshmukh had been in critical health condition living on life support after failed kidneys and liver. He was admitted into the Chennai Hospital. Eight votes were invalidated T K Vishwanathan, Lok Sabha Secretary General and Returning Officer for Vice Presidential poll said.
Ansari served as the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University before he was nominated for the 2007 elections unexpectedly. He had also contested agains Pranab Mukherjee but had lost out due to politics played by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamatha Banarjee.
21 members from BJD, 11 from TDP, 6 from Congress and supporting parties and two nominated members had failed to cast votes according to Pawan Kumar Bansal, Parliamentary affairs minister.
MPs from BJP, AGP, RSP and TRS, two from each organization, and Y S Jaganmohan Reddy of YSR Congress had not participated in the polling.
3 seats for the electoral college were vacant as Pranab Mukherjee had been elected the President, Vijay Bahuguna and J Shanta were set apart by high court.
(AW- ANil)
