NDA’s CP Radhakrishnan elected next Vice President

NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan was elected the next vice president of India on Tuesday as he bagged 452 votes against the opposition candidate B Sudershan Reddy’s 300, winning the contest with a bigger than expected margin, indicating cross-voting from the rival camp.
Announcing the result of the vice presidential election this evening, Rajya Sabha Secretary General and Returning Officer P C Mody said 767 MPs cast their votes out of the total valid electors of 781 in a turnout of 98.2 per cent. He said 752 ballots were valid and 15 were invalid, bringing down the required majority of first preference votes to 377.
Hours before the result, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh had claimed that the Opposition has stood united. “All of its 315 MPs have turned up for voting,” he said. The final tally in favour of Reddy, a retired Supreme Court judge, was 300, decidedly less than expected by the opposition camp as some MPs unaligned to the two blocs had also announced their support to him.
BJP leaders were quick to claim that at least 15 opposition MPs voted in favour of Radhakrishnan. There were hints from the ruling alliance that some opposition MPs deliberately cast invalid votes.