- Voting ends, counting begins
- Over 85 per cent votes were polled in the Vice Presidential election till 2 PM, reports PTI
- Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in a wheelchair and needed support to stand up and vote
- Home Minister Amit Shah and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan were among the leaders who turned up early at the Parliament House
- Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president J P Nadda, and Commerce Minister and Leader of House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal arrived together to cast their vote
- Union Ministers Jitendra Singh & Ashwini Vaishnaw, BJP chief whip Rakesh Singh, TRS MPs & YSRCP'S Raghu Rama Krishna Raju vote
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi casts his vote to elect India's next Vice President
- Voting to elect the next Vice President begins
NDA nominee Jagdeep Dhankar is facing off Congress leader Margaret Alva in Saturday's vice-presidential elections with the former Bengal Governor known for his stormy tenure likely to sail through.
Voting for the Vice-Presidential elections will be held in the Parliament House from 10 am to 5 pm. The results are likely later in the evening.
Dhankhar can hope to get 527 votes, far higher than the 372 required to win. Altogether it could be 70 per cent of the total votes, two per cent more than M Venkaiah Naidu received.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi casts his vote for the election of the Vice President, at Parliament House in New Delhi. PTI Photo
The Electoral College comprises 780 MPs -- 543 in Lok Sabha and 245 in Rajya Sabha. In all 744 MPs are expected to vote as eight seats in the upper House are vacant and 36 MPs of Trinamool Congress have decided to abstain.
The NDA has 441 MPs of which 394 belong to the BJP. Five nominated members are also supporting the NDA candidate.
Dhankhar also has the support of several other non-NDA parties - Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal, Jaganmohan Reddy's YSR Congress, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party, Akali Dal and the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena. Together, they make up 81 MPs.
Alva can expect 26 per cent votes (around 200). She has the support of Congress, MK Stalin's DMK, Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal, Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party and the Left parties.
Also, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Aam Aadmi Party and the nine MPs of Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray faction are supporting her.
Under the system of proportional representation by a single transferable vote, the elector has to mark preferences against the names of the candidates.
