Radhakrishnan Vs Sudershan Reddy in Tuesday's VP election; Show of strength by NDA, INDIA on poll eve

New Delhi, Sep 8 (PTI) The stage is set for a direct contest between NDA's C P Radhakrishnan and the Opposition's B Sudershan Reddy for Tuesday's vice presidential election, with the BJP-led alliance having a clear edge in the poll necessitated due to the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Both the ruling NDA and Opposition INDIA bloc held separate meetings on Monday in the Parliament complex in a show of strength, where they sensitised their respective MPs about the election process and also held mock polls while exhorting their members to vote correctly.

Polling for the vice president election, in which members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are eligible to vote, would begin at 10 AM in the new Parliament building and continue till 5 PM. Counting of votes will begin at 6 PM, and the result will be out later in the evening.

Members of Parliament are not bound by party whips to vote in the vice presidential election, which takes place under a secret ballot system.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the NDA MPs at a meeting in Parliament's Library building.

"Participated in the NDA meeting in Delhi, attended by MPs across the NDA family. The candidature of Thiru CP Radhakrishnan has generated immense enthusiasm all across. People believe that he will be an excellent Vice President, who will enrich the office with his wisdom and insights," Modi later said on X.

The prime minister would be among the first ones to vote in the vice presidential election, sources said, adding that he has to leave for a survey of flood-affected areas in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh soon thereafter.

Separately, leaders of the INDIA bloc parties like Congress, Samajwadi Party, DMK, TMC, RJD, JMM, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), CPI and CPI-M met in the Central Hall of Samvidhan Sadan (old parliament building) and were briefed about the election process.

The election for the second-highest constitutional position in the country was necessitated due to the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar on July 21.

Though the numbers are stacked in favour of the ruling NDA, which claims the support of 427 votes out of the total 781 valid votes, the rival camp is leaving no stone unturned to make it a close contest. The majority mark is 391.

The Opposition, which has 315 MPs, has asked the members to cast their vote for the "spirit of India" by hearing the voice of their conscience in what they have described as an "ideological battle".

In the meeting of NDA MPs, Prime Minister Modi asked MPs to ensure that they vote correctly, noting that it does not send out a good message when parliamentarians make a mistake in polling.

A mock polling session was held to ensure that MPs know the correct way of casting their ballot in an election held on a single transferable vote.

There are 39 MPs who are unaligned to the two main blocks. Among them, the YSR Congress has announced its support to Radhakrishnan and AIMIM's sole member Asaduddin Owaisi has pledged his vote to Reddy.

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju expressed confidence that most of the 39 MPs will vote for Radhakrishnan, whom he described as a "nationalist and a very good person".

Two other unaligned parties, BJD and BRS, have announced that they will abstain from voting. So has the SAD, a former BJP ally.

At the meeting of opposition MPs, the members were told not to let their vote go to waste in the September 9 vice presidential poll and were informed about the procedure of casting votes. The last vice-presidential polls saw some votes declared invalid.

Opposition MPs were told to only mark preference '1' in their ballot and not mark anyone as their second preference on the ballot paper. The second preference votes are counted only in case of a tie between the two candidates.

The opposition has nominated Congress leaders Naseer Hussain and Manickam Tagore, besides TMC leader Shatabdi Roy, as the polling agents for their joint candidate Reddy. Shaktisinh Gohil and Manickam Tagore have been nominated as his counting agents.

Among the leaders who attended the meeting in Samvidhan Sadan were Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party leader Sonia Gandhi, NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar, DMK leader T R Baalu and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.

In a fervent appeal to MPs ahead of the vice presidential polls, opposition nominee Sudershan Reddy exhorted them not to let party loyalty guide their choice and asserted that by voting for him, they would be ensuring that the Rajya Sabha stands as a true temple of democracy.

Reddy, in a video message, told the MPs that this is not just a vote to elect their vice-president but is a vote for the spirit of India itself.

The electoral college for the vice presidential election comprises a total of 788 members -- 245 from the Rajya Sabha and 543 from the Lok Sabha. The 12 nominated members of the Rajya Sabha are also eligible to vote in the election.

The present strength of the electoral college is 781, as six seats are vacant in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha.

The NDA is projecting Radhakrishnan as an untainted leader with rich political and administrative experience for the vice president's office and maintaining that these qualities would also prove to be useful as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

Radhakrishnan (67) served as a two-term member of the Lok Sabha from Coimbatore during the tenure of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and later went on to lead the saffron party in Tamil Nadu.

Reddy (79), who retired from the apex court in July 2011, is a veteran jurist known for several landmark judgments including on probing black-money cases and the one declaring Salwa Judum, a group of trained tribal youth deployed as special police officers to take on Naxalites, as illegal and unconstitutional.

The issue of Reddy's Salwa Judum judgement spiced up the otherwise staid campaign for the vice presidential election with Home Minister Amit Shah claiming that the 2011 verdict was a setback to the efforts to fight Maoism in Chhattisgarh.

Since the filing of nomination papers on August 20, Radhakrishnan has met MPs from all the states in groups and sought their support in the election, while Reddy has toured different states and met leaders of opposition parties.

Reddy's meeting with RJD founder Lalu Prasad came under attack from the BJP which questioned the opposition candidate for meeting a person convicted in a scam. PTI SKC SKU KR RT