The elections to the next

vice president of India The vice president of India (ISO: ) is the deputy to the head of state of the Republic of India, i.e. the president of India. The office of vice president is the second-highest constitutional office after the president and ranks second in t ...

, were held on 5 August 2017. The announcement was made by the Election Commission of India. Rajya Sabha Secretary-General Shumsher K. Sheriff served as the Returning Officer for the 15th vice presidential election. Vice President

Mohammad Hamid Ansari Mohammad Hamid Ansari (; born 1 April 1937) is an Indian bureaucrat and retired Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer who was the vice president of India from 2007 to 2017. Ansari joined the IFS in 1961. In a diplomatic career spanning 38 year ...

, completed his second term on 10 August 2017.

Venkaiah Naidu Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu (born 1 July 1949) is an Indian politician who served as the vice president of India from 2017 to 2022. He has also served as the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, minister of Housing and Urban Pover ...

won the election and took oath as 13th vice president of India on 11 August 2017 at Darbar Hall, Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi.

Background

The

Vice President of India The vice president of India (ISO: ) is the deputy to the head of state of the Republic of India, i.e. the president of India. The office of vice president is the second-highest constitutional office after the president and ranks second in t ...

is the exofficio chairperson of the ''

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

'' (upper house of the Indian parliament) and functions as its speaker. He also assumes the post of the

President of India The president of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, and the commander-in-chief, supreme commander of the Indian Armed ...

in case of a vacancy and stays in the post for a maximum period of six months and performs all the functions of the President. The Vice President also has a term of five years. During the election, the outgoing vice president was

. He was elected to the post in 2007 and re-elected in 2012. His term ended on 10 August 2017. The

Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body established by Constitution of India, the Constitution of the Republic of India empowered to conduct free and fair elections in the Republic of India. It is headed by a Chief Ele ...

announced that the election would be held on 5 August and the result would be declared on the same day.

Election process

The Vice President is elected by an electoral college which includes members of the ''

'' (the upper house of Indian parliament) and the members of the ''

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...

'' (lower house of the Indian parliament). The nominated members of the mentioned houses are also eligible to vote in the election process. In the election, voting will be done by a secret ballot and the members of parliament will use a "special pen" to mark their preference. For the 2017 election, the electoral college consists of *''

'' members: 233 elected and 12 nominated *''

'' members: 543 elected.

Candidates

A candidate participating in the election needs the support of at least 20 electors who would be the proposers of the candidate and needs to get another additional support of at least 20 seconders. The candidate also has to deposit ₹15000 ($233) as a security deposit. Two candidates were nominated for the election. One candidate was nominated by the

National Democratic Alliance The National Democratic Alliance (NDA; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Rāṣṭrīya Lokatāntrik Gaṭhabandhan'') is an Indian big tent Political group, multi-party political alliance, led by the country's biggest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Pa ...

and another by

United Progressive Alliance The United Progressive Alliance (UPA; Hindi: Saṁyukta Pragatiśīl Gaṭhabandhan) was a Political group, political alliance in India led by the Indian National Congress. It was formed after the 2004 Indian general election, 2004 general ele ...

NDA Candidate

was nominated by

. He was the then

Minister of Information and Broadcasting The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is a ministerial level agency of the Government of India responsible for the formulation and administration of rules, regulations and laws in the areas of information, broadcasting, the press, and th ...

and Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation of India. He had also served as a party president of

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

. Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

said that Naidu was a "fitting candidate" for the post. According to ''

Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language India, Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932 by P. Varadarajulu Naidu. It is headquartered in Noida, owned by the Indian Express Limited, ''Indian Express Group''. It was later taken over by Ramnat ...

'' leaders of the

felt that if Naidu got elected then it would act as a morale booster for the party in south Indian states of

Telangana Telangana is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated in the Southern India, south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ele ...

and

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. Besides the parties of the NDA,

YSR Congress party The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (, YSRCP or YCP), often shortened to simply the YSR Congress Party, is an Indian Regionalism (politics), regional political party based in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The party was initially registere ...

AIADMK The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK, also abbreviated as ADMK), also shortened to Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is an Indian regional political party with great influence in the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory ...

and Telangana Rashtra Samiti parties also pledged to support Naidu. ''

News18 Network18 Media & Investments Limited, ( d/b/a Network18 Group) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by the Reliance Industries, headed by Mukesh Ambani. Rahul Joshi is the managing director, chief executive officer and group editor-in-chief ...

'' wrote that Naidu was expected to get 489 votes compared to 394 votes required to win the election.

UPA Candidate

Gopalkrishna Gandhi was the candidate nominated by the

and had the support of 18 opposition parties. He is the grandson of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

and

C. Rajagopalachari Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (10 December 1878 – 25 December 1972), popularly known as Rajaji or C.R., also known as Mootharignar Rajaji (Rajaji'', the Scholar Emeritus''), was an Indian statesman, writer, lawyer, and Indian independence ...

, two prominent figures of the

Indian freedom movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic movement to ...

. A former diplomat, Gandhi is an alumnus of St. Stephen's College and has also served as India's envoy to

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. He has also held the post of

Governor of West Bengal The Governor of West Bengal is the nominal head of the Indian state of West Bengal. The governor is appointed by the president of India. C. V. Ananda Bose is the incumbent governor, having taken office on 18 November 2022. History In 1911 the ...

and presided over the state during

Nandigram violence Nandigram Violence refers to the violence in Nandigram, West Bengal, India, in 2007 due to the land acquisition for a project taken up by the Left Front-led Government of West Bengal to create a chemical hub, a type of special economic zone ...

. Gandhi had the support of

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

Janata Dal (United) Janata Dal (United) ("People's Party (United)"), abbreviated as JD(U), is a Social democracy, social-democratic and secular List of political parties in India, Indian political party, rooted mainly in East India, eastern and Northeast India, ...

Rashtriya Janata Dal The Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD; translation: National People's Party) is an Indian political party, mainly based in the state of Bihar. The party was founded in 1997 by Lalu Prasad Yadav. The party's support base has traditionally been Other ...

Nationalist Congress Party The Nationalist Congress Party is one of the List of political parties in India#State parties, state parties in India and is one of the major political parties in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, Maharashtra with a recognised state party statu ...

and the Left Front.

Results

Following the election, Venkaiah Naidu was elected 13th vice-president of India. He has sworn in to the office on 11 August 2017.Venkaiah Naidu To Become 13th Vice-President of India
/ref> Of 790 seats in

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

, 5 seats were vacant during the election. , - align=center !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" class="unsortable", !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=center, Candidate
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , Party
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , Electoral Votes
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , % of Votes
, - , , align="left",

, , align="left", BJP, , 516, , 67.89 , - , , align="left", Gopalkrishna Gandhi, , align="left",

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

, , 244, , 32.11 , - , colspan="5" style="background:#e9e9e9;", , - ! colspan="3" style="text-align:left;", Total ! style="text-align:right;", 760 ! style="text-align:right;", 100.00 , - , colspan="5" style="background:#e9e9e9;", , - , - , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;", Valid Votes, , 760, , 96.82 , - , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;", Invalid Votes, , 11, , 1.40 , - , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;", Turnout, , 771, , 98.22 , - , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;", Abstentions, , 14, , 1.78 , - , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;", Electors, , 785, , style="background:#e9e9e9;", , -

References

External links

{{Indian elections

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

August 2017 in India Vice-presidential elections in India