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Jagdeep Dhankhar’s resignation accepted as row erupts
Former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar's resignation raises questions after his unexpected impeachment move against Justice Varma surprised the government.
Did former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s move to kickstart the impeachment process of justice Yashwant Varma in the Rajya Sabha take the government, which wanted the process to go through the Lok Sabha, by surprise?
Was this the trigger that prompted the now former Vice President’s sudden resignation on Monday night?
On Tuesday, theories surrounding Dhankhar’s exit swirled around Delhi’s political circles, gathering momentum from the government’s delayed response to his resignation—the Prime Minister’s terse message came at 12.13pm, 15 hours and 18 minutes after the resignation was posted at 9.25pm by the Vice President’s X handle—as well as the promptness with which Rashtrapati Bhavan accepted the resignation, which was duly noted in the Gazette at 1.11am.
The die was cast last week when Dhankhar, according to people familiar with the matter, asked some Opposition leaders to give a notice for the impeachment of justice Varma in the Rajya Sabha, even as the government wanted to bring the notice only in the Lok Sabha.
The former Delhi high court judge faces removal after an undisclosed amount of money was found at his residence in March.
Accordingly, a senior Congress lawmaker who is also a lawyer, hurriedly prepared an impeachment notice on Sunday; all 63 MPs who signed it on Monday were from the Opposition parties. Not a single National Democratic Alliance (NDA) MP signed the Opposition-sponsored notice in the Rajya Sabha.
The reason: The NDA had no idea that such a notice was being prepared.
Dhankhar himself came to the House after the first Business Advisory Committee meeting on Monday and announced, “I need to inform you that I have received notice of motion under Article 217(1)(B) read with Article 218 and Article 124…to constitute a statutory committee for removal of justice Yashwant Varma. This has been received by me today. It is signed by more than 50 members of the Council of States.”
The notice derailed the government’s meticulous plan to remove justice Varma. A Lok Sabha official said, “The government wanted to pass the impeachment motion first in the Lok Sabha. It would have been touted as a success of the government and sent a clear message to the judiciary. But Dhankhar stole the show.”
A furious Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided that party chief and Leader of the Rajya Sabha JP Nadda and parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju would not attend the second BAC meeting led by Dhankhar in the evening.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh linked Dhankhar’s resignation to recent events in Parliament, particularly the absence of the two senior ministers . “Yesterday, Shri Jagdeep Dhankar chaired the Business Advisory Committee of the Rajya Sabha at 12:30pm. It was attended by most members, including the Leader of the House JP Nadda and the minister of parliamentary affairs, Kiren Rijiju. After some discussion, the BAC decided to meet again at 4:30pm. The BAC reassembled under the chairmanship of Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar. It waited for Shri Nadda and Shri Rijiju to arrive. They never came. Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar was not personally informed that the two senior ministers were not attending. Rightly, he took umbrage and rescheduled the BAC for today at 1pm. So something very serious happened yesterday between 1pm and 4:30pm to account for the deliberate absence of Shri Nadda and Shri Rijiju from the second BAC yesterday,” Ramesh wrote on X.
Countering the claim, Union health minister JP Nadda said Dhankhar’s office was told they could not attend. “Kiren Rijiju and I did not attend the meeting called by the Vice President at 4.30pm because we were occupied with other important parliamentary work. The Vice President’s Office was intimated about our inability to attend the meeting,” he told reporters on Tuesday after attending a meeting convened by defence minister Rajnath Singh.
Dhankhar then seems to have decided it was time to go. “It takes a lot of power to resign,” one of his aides told HT, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But if justice Varma’s impeachment was the trigger, there were other underlying issues as well, according to Opposition leaders.
Last week, when a senior Opposition floor leader of the Rajya Sabha met him, a candid Dhankhar spoke about the “pressure” of his work and how he had “gone out of his way” to accommodate the ruling establishment’s demands. According to a functionary aware of the details, “The Vice President described how he is getting a lot of flak from the Opposition for his role as the Rajya Sabha chairman. He was exceptionally cordial to the senior floor leader and told the latter’s aide, “Remember, you are working with a legend”.”
In an hour-long meeting, the functionary said, Dhankhar rued about his treatment by the government and expressed his pique at not being allowed to meet US Vice President JD Vance when he came to New Delhi in April. “He is the Vice President of the US. I am the Vice President of India,” Dhankhar told the Opposition leader, according to the functionary.
Two MPs close to Dhankhar said that trouble started last year when none of the high-ranking leaders of the BJP or the NDA came out strongly in his support after the Opposition moved a no-confidence notice against Dhankhar. He is the first Vice President of India to face a no-confidence notice, which was later rejected on technical grounds.
On Tuesday morning, Dhankhar met President Droupadi Murmu. Hours later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unusually short message on Dhankhar further fuelled speculations about the relationship between the government and the Vice President.
“Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar Ji has got many opportunities to serve our country in various capacities, including as the Vice President of India. Wishing him good health,” Modi posted on X.
Three other functionaries told HT that they could not recall the last time the PM had a one-on-one meeting with the Vice President.
Dhankhar also vented his frustration during his meeting with a former chief minister on Sunday. According to an official privy to the discussion, Dhankhar recalled US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House to describe his equation with the ruling establishment.
People aware of the details pointed that the lingering issues between Dhankhar and the government might be related to the VP’s speeches against judiciary that led to the government’s uneasiness or some external factors such as the RSS.
Congress MP and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, said the resignation cast a shadow over the Modi government. “The resignation of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar was sudden and unfortunate. It raises serious questions about the state of affairs within the Modi government.”
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant suggested the resignation wasn’t due to ill health alone. “The Vice President’s health has not deteriorated so much that he has to resign. Someone has made his health worse. The ruling party is silent. It suggests something is wrong,” he told reporters outside Parliament on Tuesday.
DMK MP TR Baalu claimed Dhankhar resigned “because of pressure.”
The BJP rejected the Opposition’s allegations. Union minister Anupriya Patel acknowledged the resignation was “shocking and surprising,” but attributed it to health concerns. “The resignation of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar is shocking and surprising. He presided over the House yesterday. However, the reasons cited for his resignation seem to be true because there were instances in the past when he had health complications. We wish for his better health,” she stated.
BJP MP Ravi Kishan accused the Opposition of hypocrisy. “It is the same Opposition that mimicked the Vice President; today it is rallying behind him,” he remarked, referring to an incident from December 2023 when Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee mimicked the then VP.
That irony isn’t lost on the Opposition.As a senior leader who recently met Dhankhar quipped, “He quit when we finally started becoming friends!”
(Snehashish Roy contributed to this story)
