New Delhi: The voting process to elect India’s 14 Vice President ended at 5 pm today and the results are expected later this evening.

The elections that began in the Parliament House at 10 am, is witnessing a contest between ruling NDA’s Maharashtra Governor C P Radhakrishnan and INDIA bloc’s former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy.

The counting of votes will start at 6 pm and results will be declared at around 8 pm.

The voting was held by secret ballot with Prime Minister Narendra Modi being the first to cast his vote. Following the PM, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi cast their votes. MPs namely Sheikh Abdul Rashid and Amritpal Singh, who are in preventive detention, voted via postal ballots.

The electoral college consisted of 781 members (238 Rajya Sabha and 542 Lok Sabha members) with six seats vacant in Rajya Sabha and one in Lok Sabha. The majority mark is at 391.

NDA has 426 MPs and Opposition 324 members. YSRCP with 11 members is supporting the NDA increasing its support base to 437. BRS and BJD are abstaining the polls. Thus, the NDA nominee has a numerical advantage over INDIA bloc’s candidate.

 

The polls were necessitated following former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s resignation in July.

 

Confident of victory, NDA has scheduled a celebratory dinner at Union Minister Prahlad Joshi’s residence after declaration of results at around 8 to 8.30 pm. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to participate in the dinner along with party MPs and senior leaders, party sources said.