BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu was on Saturday, August 5, elected the vice-president of India after he defeated Congress candidate Gopal Krishna Gandhi by a margin of 272 votes.
Of the total 771 votes cast out of a possible 785, and 760 of them were deemed valid. Naidu managed to get 516 votes, which ensured that he won the election comfortably. Gandhi got 244 votes.
With him elected vice-president, there is yet another vacancy in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with several names being pitched to fill the empty spots.
Vacant seats
Naidu has already resigned from the posts of Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Urban Development and and Minister of Information and Broadcasting. The duties have now fallen upon Narendra Singh Tomar and Smriti Irani respectively.
Elsewhere, Arun Jaitley is currently the Minister of Finance as well as Defence, having taken the latter up when Manohar Parrikar left the post to become Goa chief minister earlier this year.
And then there were deaths, like that of Anil Madhav Dave. That demise meant that the post of Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment had fallen vacant. It was taken up by Dr Harsh Vardhan, who already holds the ministries of Science and Technology as well as Earth Sciences.
Next Cabinet reshuffle?
The next people to be inducted into the Union Cabinet could be determined by the upcoming elections, one of which is looming in Gujarat — the home state of Modi himself.
Given that Amit Shah is running for a Rajya Sabha seat, he could be one of the new inductees in the Cabinet. He himself may have denied any such possibility, but even Naidu himself had denied that he was being considered for the post of vice president by the BJP.
Some rumours also suggest that leaders from AIADMK — which is said to be joining hands with the BJP soon — may be inducted into the Union Cabinet.
If that is the case, then some JD-U members might also make their way into the Cabinet, especially after the party has joined hands with the BJP and formed a coalition government mid-term with the BJP.
