The Vice-Presidential election of 2025: an indirect election in plain view

The Vice President of India is not chosen by direct popular vote. Under Article 66, the Vice President is elected by members of an electoral college consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament, voting by proportional representation through the single transferable vote, with secret ballot. The Vice President is also the ex officio Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, so the election matters for the conduct of the upper House as well as for succession to the Presidency.

The 2025 election was necessitated by the resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar on 21 July 2025, citing health reasons. His term would otherwise have run until August 2027, so the election was held to fill a mid-term vacancy, not at the end of a full term. The National Democratic Alliance nominated C. P. Radhakrishnan, then Governor of Maharashtra, while the opposition INDIA bloc nominated former Supreme Court judge B. Sudershan Reddy.

Voting took place on 9 September 2025. Of 781 eligible members of Parliament, 767 cast votes, a turnout of about 98.2 per cent. Fifteen votes were declared invalid, and 13 members abstained, including members of the Biju Janata Dal, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, the Shiromani Akali Dal, and one independent. Radhakrishnan secured 452 first-preference votes and Reddy secured 300, a margin of 152 votes, and Radhakrishnan was declared elected as the 15th Vice President of India.

The result broadly tracked the strength of the two sides in Parliament, but not exactly. The opposition had claimed support from 315 members, yet its candidate polled 300 first-preference votes, a shortfall that prompted discussion of cross-voting and invalid votes. That discussion is a normal feature of secret-ballot indirect elections, in which party discipline cannot be enforced in the same way as in an open vote in the House.

The election is a useful teaching case because it shows the difference between a direct election, in which voters choose a representative, and an indirect election, in which representatives choose an office-holder. The outcome was decided by fewer than 800 voters, yet it filled the second-highest constitutional office in the country and determined who would chair the Rajya Sabha.