The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) said on Monday that it will abstain from voting in the Vice Presidential election tomorrow.
"Biju Janata Dal has taken a decision to remain abstained from the vice presidential election tomorrow. The Biju Janata Dal remains equidistant from NDA and INDIA alliances. We are concerned about the development and welfare of Odisha and 4.5 crore Odias," BJD's Rajya Sabha leader Sasmit Patra said.
Party sources disclosed that the political affairs committee of the BJD convened last week and counseled president Naveen Patnaik against joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), cautioning that it could compromise the role of the party in opposing the ruling BJP in Odisha. It was left to the decision of Patnaik, who reached Delhi on Sunday.
The BJD has had different stances in earlier Vice Presidential elections. It abstained from the 2012 election in which Hamid Ansari was re-elected, voted for non-NDA candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi in 2017 when Venkaiah Naidu won, and for NDA's Jagdeep Dhankhar in 2022.
"But this time, it was a tough decision to vote for the NDA because the BJD government lost control of the state to the BJP in 2024," a party worker said.
The other leader highlighted the fact that the BJD, which has a long history of being anti-Congress, also declined to support Opposition candidate B. Sudershan Reddy.
A top opposition leader outside the Congress faction informed Hindustan Times that they had made no overtures to the BJD for support.
KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi to Boycott Vice President Election
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has on Monday said it will be abstaining from voting during the Vice Presidential election on Tuesday. The information was shared by the party's working president KT Rama Rao (KTR).The decision was made at a meeting of party president and former Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao with the top leaders of the party," KTR said. The party's Rajya Sabha members have also been informed and directed not to take part in the polling, he added.
The decision follows as Odisha's Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has also announced its abstention in the forthcoming Vice Presidential polls.
Nowadays, the BRS has four members in the Rajya Sabha and zero members in the Lok Sabha. The Vice President is elected by an Electoral College consisting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members elected to office and members of the Upper House nominated to office.
In 2022, when the party was called the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), it supported Opposition nominee Margaret Alva during the Vice Presidential election. It had 16 MPs then, of which nine were from the Lok Sabha.
The election this year was precipitated as Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on July 21, the first day of the monsoon session, due to health issues. Dhankhar has not interacted with Opposition leaders since quitting office.
KTR clarified that though both the NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and INDIA bloc candidate Justice Sudarshan Reddy were "good people," the BRS abstained to bring focus to the plight of farmers of Telangana.
"The move to avoid holding the Vice-Presidential election this time is a reflection of the Telangana farmers' suffering due to the shortage of urea in the state," he stated.
He indicted both the BJP at the Centre and the Telangana Congress government for ignoring the plight of the farmers, especially the urea shortage that has resulted in free-for-all among the farmers in queues.
The BRS could have used the NOTA option if it was an option in the vice-presidential election. As it does not exist, we are boycotting voting," KTR added.
Taking a strong reaction, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson and Bhongir MP Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy condemned the BRS for its attitude. "It is ridiculous on the part of the BRS to say it will not vote in the Vice-Presidential election on the plea of shortage of urea in the state," he added.
Targeting the political stance of the BRS, he further said: "Since the party dropped its old tag TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) and re-christened itself as BRS, it had kept itself away from the Telangana sentiment and more or less forgotten the very reason for which it was formed."
The MP of Congress also argued that the candidate of INDIA bloc was worthy of support. "The Opposition nominee, Justice Sudarshan Reddy, was not a member of any political party and was an individual who had a good idea about democracy. By not voting for such a candidate and opting to abstain from the election, the BRS has proved that it has become an irrelevant party in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha," Reddy stated.
