Hamid Ansari gets second term as vice president of India
UPA candidate Hamid Ansari was re-elected as India's Vice President on 07 August defeating NDA nominee Jaswant Singh. Ansari got 490 votes against 238 bagged by NDA’s Jaswant Singh out of 736 votes polled. The former vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University was supported by Left parties and UPA allies like SP and BSP.
He is the second vice-president to be re-elected after S Radhakrishnan (1952-1962). 75 years old Ansari, was elected by a total of 787 members of the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha were eligible to vote. The voting began at 10:00 am and continued till 5:00 pm. The counting of votes took place at 6:00 pm and results declared at around 7:30 pm. He defeated BJP leader Jaswant Singh, a former finance, defence and foreign minister of the country.