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NEW DELHI: The BJP-led NDA’s vice-presidential candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar filed his nomination on Monday after his name was announced for the post by party president J P Nadda on July 16. Dhankhar resigned as governor of West Bengal before filing his papers.
The election for the vice-president is scheduled to be held on August 6. If elected, Dhankhar will replace M Venkaiah Naidu as the next vice-president of India and chairperson of Rajya Sabha. The opposition has fielded senior Congress leader Margaret Alva for the post.
While Dhankhar was a sitting governor of West Bengal when his name was announced for the vice-president’s post, Alva has been governor of four states — Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.
The Narendra Modi government seems to have a special liking for governors as far as the posts of the President and vice-president are concerned.
It has got the chance to name four candidates for the posts of President and vice-president in the last eight years – Ram Nath Kovind, M Venkaiah Naidu, Droupadi Murmu and Dhankhar.
Three out of these four were governors. Kovind was the governor of Bihar when his name was declared in 2017. This year’s presidential candidate Murmu was governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021 while Dhankhar was appointed as West Bengal governor in 2019.
Among these four, Naidu, whose, term as vice-president gets over next month, is the only one who has never been a governor. He was Union minister for housing and urban affairs just before he was elevated as vice-president.
Modi government and firsts
The Modi government is known to have created many ‘firsts’. For instance, for the first time in 30 years, a party won a majority in 2014 when Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP registered a victory in the Lok Sabha election. He is the first leader to become PM as a first-time MP.
He is also the first-ever PM to be born after independence. “Modi became the first Indian prime minister to embark on a bilateral visit to Nepal after a long period of 17 years, to Australia after 28 years, to Fiji after 31 years and the UAE as well as Seychelles after 34 years,” the PMO’s portal says.
When the BJP chose Murmu for the presidential candidate, it said she would become the first President belonging to the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category.
Similarly, it claimed that Dhankhar, a Jat from Rajasthan, would be the first vice-president or President belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category. As a lawyer, he had fought hard for the inclusion of Jats in the OBC category in Rajasthan.
Though Kovind is not the first President belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, the Modi government has now promoted all the three categories who get reservation in employment.
In another first, both the Lok Sabha speaker and Rajya Sabha chairperson may come from the same state. While speaker Om Birla is a Lok Sabha MP from Kota, Dhankhar comes from Jhunjhunu – both in Rajasthan.
The election for the vice-president is scheduled to be held on August 6. If elected, Dhankhar will replace M Venkaiah Naidu as the next vice-president of India and chairperson of Rajya Sabha. The opposition has fielded senior Congress leader Margaret Alva for the post.
While Dhankhar was a sitting governor of West Bengal when his name was announced for the vice-president’s post, Alva has been governor of four states — Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.
The Narendra Modi government seems to have a special liking for governors as far as the posts of the President and vice-president are concerned.
It has got the chance to name four candidates for the posts of President and vice-president in the last eight years – Ram Nath Kovind, M Venkaiah Naidu, Droupadi Murmu and Dhankhar.
Three out of these four were governors. Kovind was the governor of Bihar when his name was declared in 2017. This year’s presidential candidate Murmu was governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021 while Dhankhar was appointed as West Bengal governor in 2019.
Among these four, Naidu, whose, term as vice-president gets over next month, is the only one who has never been a governor. He was Union minister for housing and urban affairs just before he was elevated as vice-president.
Modi government and firsts
The Modi government is known to have created many ‘firsts’. For instance, for the first time in 30 years, a party won a majority in 2014 when Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP registered a victory in the Lok Sabha election. He is the first leader to become PM as a first-time MP.
He is also the first-ever PM to be born after independence. “Modi became the first Indian prime minister to embark on a bilateral visit to Nepal after a long period of 17 years, to Australia after 28 years, to Fiji after 31 years and the UAE as well as Seychelles after 34 years,” the PMO’s portal says.
When the BJP chose Murmu for the presidential candidate, it said she would become the first President belonging to the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category.
Similarly, it claimed that Dhankhar, a Jat from Rajasthan, would be the first vice-president or President belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category. As a lawyer, he had fought hard for the inclusion of Jats in the OBC category in Rajasthan.
Though Kovind is not the first President belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, the Modi government has now promoted all the three categories who get reservation in employment.
In another first, both the Lok Sabha speaker and Rajya Sabha chairperson may come from the same state. While speaker Om Birla is a Lok Sabha MP from Kota, Dhankhar comes from Jhunjhunu – both in Rajasthan.
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