Vice President : Jagdeep Dhankhar will take oath as the 14th Vice President of India today

Former Bengal Governor and NDA candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar will take oath as the new Vice President of India today. President Draupadi Murmu will administer the oath of office to India's Jagdeep Dhankhar at the Rashtrapati Bhavan at 11:45 am today. Dhankhar had defeated joint opposition candidate Margaret Alva as the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) candidate in the vice presidential election on Saturday. In a one-sided contest, Dhankhar got a total of 528 votes, while Alva had to be satisfied with only 182 votes. A total of 725 MPs voted in this election, out of which 710 votes were found valid, 15 ballots were found invalid. About 93 percent of the MPs, including Prime Minister Modi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, voted in the Vice Presidential election, while more than 50 MPs did not exercise their franchise.

Now 71-year-old Dhankhar will replace M Venkaiah Naidu as the country's new Vice President and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. He will be the 14th Vice President of India. Naidu's term ended on August 10.

Now the presiding officers of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will now be from Rajasthan, where the Congress government is at present. The Vice President is the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, which will now be Dhankhar and whose home district is Jhunjhunu. At the same time, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla also belongs to Kota in Rajasthan. Assembly elections are to be held in Rajasthan next year.

71 year-old Jagdeep Dhankhar was a renowned lawyer before his current role as the Governor of West Bengal. He was instrumental in getting Other Backward Class (OBC) status for the Jat community in Rajasthan. Dhankhar, who had been the junior minister of parliamentary affairs for a few days at the Center, will prove to be helpful in conducting the house as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha.