NDA nominee CP Radhakrishnan was elected as the 15th Vice President after he defeated B Sudershan Reddy of the opposition INDIA bloc.
Radhakrishnan was declared winner shortly after the voting concluded in the vice presidential elections. The NDA-backed nominee received 452 votes, while Sudershan Reddy got 300 votes.
The 67-year-old Radhakrishnan, who was currently serving as the Maharashtra Governor, became the third leader from Tamil Nadu to occupy the second-highest Constitutional position.
Returning Officer PC Mody declared CP Radhakrishnan as the winner in the Vice Presidential election and said 767 MPs cast their votes out of the total 781 in a turnout of 98.2 per cent.
Follow all the latest updates on Vice Presidential election here
He said that 752 ballots were valid, while 15 were declared invalid, bringing down the required majority of first preference votes to 377.
The ruling NDA alliance had picked Maharashtra governor CP Radhakrishnan, an OBC from the Goundar-Kongu Vellalar community, as its VP candidate on August 17.
He successfully contested against former Supreme Court judge Sudershan Reddy, who also hails from southern India.
{{/usCountry}}He successfully contested against former Supreme Court judge Sudershan Reddy, who also hails from southern India.
{{/usCountry}}The voting for the Vice Presidential election began at 10 am and continued till 5 pm with all members of Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha in the electoral college.
A total of 315 opposition MPs had turned up to vote in the vice presidential polls, the Congress said. The electoral college comprising members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha had a strength of 781.
Radhakrishnan, a two-term member of the Lok Sabha from Coimbatore, has long been associated with the BJP. During the tenure of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he came close to becoming a Union minister, but had to lose out to fellow Tamilan Pon Radhakrishnan in 1998 after some confusion over his name by the then floor managers of the BJP.
Starting his political career with the RSS, he rose through the ranks in the organisation and later in the BJP, gaining acceptability in the party and the state.