Jagdeep Dhankhar to take oath as 14th Vice President of India today

Former West Bengal Governor and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar is set to assume office as the 14th Vice President of India. Dhankhar will take oath as the next Vice President of India later during the day. Notably, newly elected President Droupadi Murmu will be administering the Oath of Office to the elected Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankkar at Rashtrapati Bhavan at 11:45 am on Thursday. 

Dhankhar, who was the ruling National Democratic Alliance candidate, won the vice presidential election on Sunday. He secured a huge vote share of 74.36 percent, the highest in the last six vice presidential elections, with 528 votes against joint Opposition pick Margaret Alva’s 182 votes.

After the counting of votes, the returning officer of the vice presidential election said of the total 780 electors, about 725 cast their ballots on Sunday but 15 votes were found to be invalid. 

It is pertinent to mention that the turnout was 92.94 percent, he said, adding that a candidate needed 356 votes to get elected.  Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey jointly signed the ‘Certification of Election of Jagdeep Dhankar as the next Vice President of India’.

A look at Jagdeep Dhankar’s childhood and early life

Jagdeep Dhankhar was born on May 18, 1951, in a small town in Rajasthan's Kithana in the Jhunjhunu region. He attended Sainik School in Chittorgarh for his final year of high school. Dhankar was later admitted to Maharaja's College at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur in the ensuing years, where he eventually earned a B.Sc. in Physics. He then enrolled in an LLB programme there in 1978, finishing his degree in 1979.

After being elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Lok Sabha district of Jhunjhunu in 1989 and a Union Minister in 1990 while serving as the Janata Dal's representative at the time, Dhankhar entered politics. Later in 1993, he was chosen to represent Rajasthan's Kishangarh in the Ajmer district as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), a position he held for five years until 1998. Dhankhar served as a representative for the Kishangarh seat in the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha from 1993 to 1998. In 2003, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

On July 16, the NDA named Jadgeep Dhankhar, the former Union Minister and governor of West Bengal at the time, as its vice presidential candidate. The opposition announced a former union minister and governor of Goa, Rajasthan, and Gujarat as their joint candidate the very following day to challenge him.