UPA candidate Hamid Ansari was Tuesday re-elected India's vice president, defeating NDA nominee Jaswant Singh.
Hamid Ansari.u00a0
Altogether 787 Members of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha were eligible to vote, 47 MPs did not cast their votes. These included ailing Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, who recently underwent a heart surgery.Those who abstained included 21 BJD MPs, 11 of TDP and two of RSP. In all, 736 votes were polled in the election that took place today.
Eight votes were invalid, according to T K Vishwanathan, Lok Sabha Secretary General and Returning Officer for Vice Presidential poll. The election was on expected lines with the UPA cobbling its numbers comfortably on the lines it had managed during the Presidential poll including bagging the support of key constituent Trinamool Congress and outside allies SP and BSP. u00a0
