Jagdeep Dhankhar elected India's 14th Vice President; defeats Margaret Alva by landslide

National Democratic Alliance's Jagdeep Dhankhar defeated Opposition's candidate Margaret Alva to be elected India's 14th Vice President on Saturday. Dhankhar won with a thumping majority by securing 528 votes against Alva's 182 votes. 725 parliamentarians cast their votes, which round up to 92.9 per cent voting in the vice-presidential election. However, 15 votes were found to be invalid, said returning officer Utpal Kumar Singh.

Race for Vice Presidential post

On July 16, NDA announced Jadgeep Dhankhar, the then West Bengal Governor, and former Union Minister, as its Vice Presidential Candidate. To give competition to him, the very next day, the Opposition announced former Union Minister and Governor of Goa, Rajasthan and Gujarat, as their joint candidate.

Besides the NDA alliance partners, Andhra Pradesh’s ruling YSRCP, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party BSP, and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal pledged to back Dhankhar. Alva, who was expecting the support of all Opposition parties, which had supported Yashwant Sinha against Droupadi Murmi in the Presidential elections, suffered a rupture when Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress announced that it would abstain from voting. 

With results now out, Dhankhar, and not Alva, will take oath as the Vice President of India on August 11, replacing Venkaiah Naidu to the post, whose tenure is ending a day prior, i.e., on August 10. 

Who is Jagdeep Dhankhar?

Born on May 18, 1951, Dhankar hails from a small village in Rajasthan's Kithana in the Jhunjhunu district and completed his school at Sainik School in Chittorgarh. In the following years, he was admitted to Maharaja’s College at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur and graduated with B.Sc in Physics and later took up an LLB course in 1978 at the University of Rajasthan and completed his education in the year 1979.

Dhankar was later enrolled in the Bar Council of Rajasthan as an advocate on November 10 of the same year.  A former advocate of the Supreme Court of India, he has also served as the President of the Rajasthan High Court Bar Association in 1987, the youngest in that position.

Dhankhar entered politics after becoming a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Lok Sabha constituency Jhunjhunu in 1989 and a Union Minister in 1990 while representing the Janata Dal at the time. Later in 1993, he was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Rajasthan's Kishangarh in Ajmer district and served in the post for five years till 1998. From 1993 to 1998, Dhankhar was also a member of the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha from the Kishangarh constituency. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2003. 

On July 30, 2019, Dhankhar was appointed as the West Bengal Governor, a post he held till July 17, 2022, a day after he was named NDA's candidate for the Vice Presidential election.