Election for New Vice President of India to Be Held on September 9, Announces Election Commission
New Delhi: The Election Commission on Friday (August 1) announced that the election for the new vice president will be held on September 9. The election was necessitated following the surprise resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar on July 21.
The notification for the election will be issued on August 7 and the last date for filing nomination papers is August 21, the EC circular stated. The last date to withdraw a nomination is August 25.
The poll, if necessary, will be held between 10 am to 5 pm on September 9, the circular stated, and the result will be announced the same day.
Dhankhar’s resignation, the suddenness of which has raised several questions, led to a rare mid-term vacancy in the second highest constitutional position of the country.
The last such mid-term vacancy was in 1987 when Ramaswamy Venkataraman resigned after he was chosen as the Congress party’s presidential nominee to succeed President Giani Zail Singh. Prior to that, VV Giri, who had taken over as acting president due to the death of Zakir Hussain in May 1969, stepped down from his post to contest the presidential election.
The ECI is, in compliance with Rule 40 of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Rules, 1974, mandated to prepare and maintain an updated list of the members of an electoral college, along with their latest addresses, which it had announced on Thursday (July 31) was finalised.
“Accordingly, the Commission has finalised the electoral college list for the Vice-Presidential Election, 2025. These members are listed in a continuous serial order, arranged alphabetically based on the State/Union Territory of their respective Houses,” the ECI had said in a statement.
Dhankhar assumed the office as the 14th vice president in August 2022, after defeating the opposition candidate former Rajasthan governor Margaret Alva. His tenure as the Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman was marked by confrontation with the opposition benches.
On July 21, Dhankhar invoked Article 67(a) of the constitution to step down from his post as vice president and Rajya Sabha chairperson “with immediate effect” citing health and “medical advice”. He released the letter on his X handle.
His resignation stirred a swirl of speculations. In the initial 15 hours since his announcement, there was no public acknowledgements of his move – nor any good wishes for his health – from key position-holders in the government. Then, at 12.13 pm, prime minister Narendra Modi wrote a curt post on X, noting that Dhankhar “has got many opportunities to serve our country in various capacities, including as the Vice President of India.” He then wished him “good health.”
Dhankhar had dropped no hints that his resignation may be in the offing. However, observers, and those even within the higher echelons of the BJP, have privately offered a reason that his decision to accept the opposition’s notice to remove Justice Yashwant Varma may have upset the Union government’s plan.
Some other observers also believe that Dhankhar’s tirade against the judiciary in recent months, even though it favoured the BJP, may have led to a tussle between the government and the judiciary.
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