Vice Presidential Elections: TRS to support opposition's Margaret Alva

Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on 5 August announced its decision to support opposition's candidate Margarat Alva in the 16th Vice Presidential Elections scheduled to be held on 6 August. The party's official letter signed by Dr.K. Keshava Rao read, "The President of TRS party, K Chandrasekhar Rao, Chief Minister has decided to support the combined opposition candidate Margaret Alva for the post of Vice-President of India," The letter further directed all the 16 TRS MPs to vote for her.

So far, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and others have extended support to Alva. However, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) with 23 MPs in Lok Sabha and 16 MPs in Rajya Sabha has decided to stay away from the Vice Presidential election alleging that it was not consulted before announcing Alva's name.

Earlier on 17 July, the joint Opposition of 17 parties had chosen Margaret Alva as the Vice-President nominee for the Vice-President elections. NCP chief Sharad Pawar had announced Margaret Alva's nomination. She had also received support from Shiv Sena.

Margaret Alva has served as the 17th Governor of Goa, 23rd Governor of Gujarat, 20th Governor of Rajasthan, and 4th Governor of Uttarakhand.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party has named Jagdeep Dhankar, the Governor of West Bengal, as its Vice-Presidential candidate.

The new Vice President will succeed the current VP Venkaiah Naidu whose tenure is ending on 10 August.

How is the VP of India elected

The Vice President of India is elected by an electoral college which consists of members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The members will be casting their votes through secret ballots on 6 August and the results are expected to be declared on the same day.

For this year's VP election, the electoral college consists of 233 elected members of the Rajya Sabha, 12 nominated members of the Rajya Sabha, and 543 elected members of the Lok Sabha.

Presidential election

In the recently concluded Presidential elections in July 2022, the TRS had supported opposition candidate Yeshwant Sinha. TRS working president KT Rama Rao had accompanied Sinha to Delhi when he went to file the nomination papers. But he was defeated by NDA's Draupadi Murmu who went on to become the first person belonging to the tribal community to be the President of India and also the second woman after Pratibha Patel to hold the office.