As the post of the Deputy Chairperson had been lying vacant since June 30, following the retirement of Congress leader PJ Kurien, the nomination papers were filed on Wednesday.
When will the election to the post be held?
Rajya Sabha chairman and Vice President of India, M Venkaiah Naidu has announced in the House that the Deputy Chairman election will be held at 11 am on August 9.
Rules of the Deputy Chairman Election
Article 89 of the Constitution stipulates that the vacancy for the post of Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson has to be filled up at the earliest. “The council of States shall, as soon as may be, choose a member of the council to be Deputy a thereof and, so often as the office of Deputy Chairman becomes vacant, the council shall choose another member to be Deputy chairman thereof,” according to the clause 2 of Article 89.
Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of Rajya Sabha state that in the absence of a Deputy Chairman, the Vice-President may nominate from among the members of the council a panel of not more than six Vice-Chairperson to preside over the council.
Candidates in the fray for the post
Harivansh Narayan Singh of the Janata Dal (United) and BK Hariprasad of the Congress filed their nomination as NDA and UPA candidates respectively for election to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman’s post.
This is first tenure of Harivansh, a former editor of Hindi daily Prabhat Khabar, in the Upper House. Hariprasad, a Congress MP from Karnataka, on the other hand, is into his third term in the Rajya Sabha.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has extended his support to the NDA candidate Harivansh Narayan Singh.
Number of votes required to win
The current strength of the House is 244 (as one seat is vacant). So support of 123 members will be needed for a win in the full house.
The Opposition has at least 116 votes, including two of YSR Congress.
On the other hand, BJP which has 73 members on its own, is banking on the support of 13 members from All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), 9 from Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and 6 of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to sail through.
According to reports, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP is certain to go against the ruling party candidate.
Shiv Sena, AIADMK and Akali Dal have extended their full support to the NDA nominee. While BJD, which has not opened its cards yet stated: “Because of assembly elections in Odisha next year, BJD may abstain or be absent during voting.”