Hyderabad: Hours after Biju Janata Dal (BJD) decided to abstain from voting in Tuesday’s Vice-Presidential election, K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR)-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) made a similar announcement.
“The decision was taken at a meeting of party president and former Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao with party leaders,” BRS working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) said on Monday.
The decision has been conveyed to the party’s Rajya Sabha MPs, who have been directed to stay away from the polling.
The BRS currently has four members in Rajya Sabha, and nil in the Lok Sabha.
Two candidates are in fray for the Vice-President’s post — NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and INDIA bloc’s Justice Sudarshan Reddy.
KTR said that both the candidates were good people, but the BRS chose to abstain from voting to highlight the concerns of Telangana farmers who were being ignored by the BJP at the Centre and Congress government in the state.
“The decision to skip the Vice-Presidential election this time is an expression of anguish of Telangana’s farmers over the shortage of urea in the state,” KTR said.
“The BRS could have exercised the option of NOTA had it been available in the vice-presidential election. Since it is not there, we are abstaining from voting,” he explained.
‘Absurd’ decision, says Congress
The Congress slammed BRS’ decision, calling it ‘absurd’.
“It is absurd on the part of the BRS to claim it won’t vote in the Vice-Presidential election on the pretext of urea shortage in the state,” Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy said.
“By refusing to vote for such a candidate and choosing to stay away from the election, the BRS has shown that it has become an irrelevant party both in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha,” Chamala said.
VP election process
The Vice-President is elected by an Electoral College, comprising elected members of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, and nominated members of the Upper House.
In the 2022 election, the BRS (then Telangana Rashtra Samithi) had voted for Opposition candidate Margaret Alva. It had 16 MPs, including nine Lok Sabha members, at that time.
Jagdeep Dhankhar got 528 electoral votes to comfortably beat Alva (182).
Premature election was necessitated by the resignation of Dhankhar, who stepped down on July 21, the first day of the Monsoon session, citing health reasons.