The Vice-Presidential election, which saw NDA candidate C.P. Radhakrishnan emerge victorious, has triggered fresh speculation and internal churn within the Opposition ranks.
While the result itself may not have come as a surprise, the discrepancy in voting numbers has cast a shadow over the Opposition's claims of unity.
According to official data announced by Rajya Sabha Secretary General P.C. Mody, Radhakrishnan secured 452 first preference votes, comfortably crossing the required 391-mark to win. His opponent, Justice (Retd.) B. Sudershan Reddy, the consensus candidate of the INDIA bloc, received 300 votes.
What Jairam Ramesh claimed
Senior Congress leader and General Secretary in-charge of Communications Jairam Ramesh had taken to X earlier, claiming a 100 per cent turnout from all 315 Opposition MPs, hailing it as an "unprecedented show of unity." In his words: “The voting in the Vice-Presidential election is over. The Opposition has stood united. ALL of its 315 MPs have turned up for voting. This is an unprecedented 100% turnout.”
He later added: “Its joint candidate Justice (Retd.) B. Sudershan Reddy secured 40% of the vote. In 2022, the Opposition had received 26%. The BJP's arithmetical victory is really both a moral and political defeat.”
But the arithmetic on paper tells a different story — and a politically uncomfortable one for the Opposition.
The cross-voting conundrum
If all 315 Opposition MPs indeed turned up and voted, as claimed, and yet only 300 votes were received by the INDIA bloc candidate, 15 votes have clearly gone missing. That raises a crucial and unavoidable question:
Did 15 Opposition MPs cross-vote in favour of the NDA candidate?
If so, it wasn’t just a turnout exercise — it was a quiet breach of unity, suggesting internal fissures within the INDIA bloc, even as its leaders present a united front in public.
This development is likely to have serious implications for the INDIA bloc, especially as it gears up for the upcoming Assembly elections and looks to finalise seat-sharing arrangements for this year and the 2026 polls.
The identity of the 15 MPs who allegedly cross-voted may soon become a point of internal investigation — and potentially, public scandal.
While the NDA celebrates its comfortable win, the Opposition’s attempt to frame the result as a “moral victory” appears to be undermined by its own numbers.
The INDIA bloc's leadership will now have to grapple with not just the embarrassment of cross-voting but also the strategic implications of trust deficits within its camp.