Venkaiah Naidu elected India’s 13th Vice President

New Delhi [India]: National Democratic Alliance (NDA) nominee and former union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu has been elected as the 13th Vice President of India with 516 votes. Whereas, Opposition nominee Gopalkrishna Gandhi has secured 244 votes. 760 votes were valid while 11 were invalid. 381 votes were the quota set to win the polls. Total 771 out of 785 MPs cast their votes today. However, it was revealed that 14 Members of Parliament (MPs) were not present during the voting process. Voting for Vice Presidential Election ended with a total poll percentage of 98.21%. The term of incumbent Vice-President Hamid Ansari, who held the position for two consecutive terms, will come to an end on August 10. The voting began at 10 a.m. earlier in the day. The Vice-President is selected through a secret ballot by the members of the Electoral College consisting of the members of both Houses of Parliament in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. The nominated Members of Rajya Sabha as well as of Lok Sabha are also eligible to be included in the Electoral College and, therefore, are entitled to participate in the election. Members of Parliament had to use special pens for marking their choice. Votes marked with any other pen are liable to be rejected. The ballot paper contained the names of the contesting candidates but did not contain any election symbol. (ANI)