Patna, June 29: The Election Commission today declared the schedule for the election of the Vice-President, prompting Bihar's political fraternity to begin a guessing game on which way chief minister Nitish Kumar will swing.
The polls to elect the Vice-President will be held on August 5, five days before incumbent Hamid Ansari's term ends.
Nitish had triggered off a war of words among the Grand Alliance partners after he broke ranks to endorse NDA presidential nominee Ram Nath Kovind.
All eyes are therefore now on the chief minister though numerically the Janata Dal United doesn't wield much clout. The JDU has two MPs in the Lok Sabha and six members in the Rajya Sabha.
JDU allies RJD and Congress are hoping that Nitish would go the way he did in 2012. Five years ago, Nitish, then in the NDA, had backed UPA presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee. But in the election for Vice-President, Nitish had supported NDA candidate Jaswant Singh against the incumbent UPA nominee, Hamid Ansari.
His allies, still upset over his support to Kovind, are now keeping their fingers crossed and hoping that he would vote along with them.
"Ideally Nitish should support us but we are not sure what will happen if an election is held for the post of Vice-President. If he supports the NDA candidate once again, then we will know for sure that may be technically with us but body and soul is dedicated to the NDA," a RJD leader said on the condition of anonymity.
Sources in the JDU said they were in the dark and it was nearly impossible for anyone to judge the mood of Nitish. "It is really difficult to predict in advance whom Nitishji will support seeing his past record. You can never gauge what is going on inside his mind as he does not reveal anything to anyone. Three days before separating from the NDA he was saying that unity with the BJP was rock-like. When Jitan Ram Manjhi was set to be shown the door, nobody knew except Sharad ji. But today, things are different; he hardly shares his thought with any political leaders. The same will happen in the Vice-President election as well. You should not be surprised if he supports the NDA candidate in the vice-presidential election as well, "a JDU insider told The Telegraph.
According to the schedule announced by the Election Commission today, nominations for the election for Vice-President can be filed from July 4 to July 18, with the names of 20 MPs each as proposers and seconders. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is July 21.
The Vice-President, who is also the chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, is elected by all members of Parliament through a secret ballot. If there is more than one contender, the election will take place in Parliament on August 5 and votes counted the same day.
If there are more than two candidates and none gets more than half the votes, the second-preference marked on the votes of the candidate who comes third, are counted. This is similar to the process of electing Rajya Sabha members by state Assemblies.
Four of the 790 MP seats in both Houses of Parliament are vacant, and 395 is the half-way mark. The BJP, with 337 MPs in both Houses, has the largest number of votes and is expected to cross the halfway mark with allies.
Like in the presidential polls scheduled on July 17, pens with magenta-ink - manufactured by the Karnataka government-run Mysore Paints and Varnish Ltd - will be used to mark votes in the vice-presidential elections. Last year, the votes of 12 Haryana Congress lawmakers were declared invalid during elections to two Rajya Sabha berths because a wrong pen was used.
Vice-President Ansari, a Calcutta-born former diplomat and Padma Shri, has been in office for two consecutive terms since 2007. Before this, he was chairman of the National Commission for Minorities and vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.
During Ansari's term as Vice-President, the Rajya Sabha TV was launched to air proceedings of the upper House live, as well as documentaries and news. Ansari's officer on special duty Gurdeep Sappal is the CEO and editor-in-chief of the channel, known for taking a stand independent of the government.
