Aug 11, 2025: During the vice presidential election, the four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir will remain vacant. On September 9, members of both Houses of Parliament will select the 17th vice president. The Election Commission has not conducted biennial elections to fill the four Union Territory seats nearly ten months after Assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir. MLAs choose members of their states' Rajya Sabha. Since Ghulam Nabi Azad and Nazir Ahmed Laway completed their terms on February 15, 2021, the Union Territory has not had a representative in the Upper House of Parliament. On February 10 of the same year, Fayaz Ahmed Mir and Shamsheer Singh Manhas, two additional members, had completed their terms. On July 21, Jagdeep Dhankhar, who was elected vice president in 2022, resigned due to health issues. He served until August 2027. The vice president is elected by the members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, with nominated members of the Upper House also eligible to vote. The Lok Sabha does not have any members who have been nominated. The 543-member Lok Sabha has one vacant seat — Basirhat in West Bengal — while there are six vacancies in the 245-member Rajya Sabha. There are six open seats in the Rajya Sabha, with one each from Punjab and Jharkhand and four from Jammu and Kashmir. After AAP leader Sanjeev Arora quit following his recent election to the state Assembly in a bypoll, the Punjab seat became vacant. A new vacancy in the Upper House from Jharkhand has emerged as a result of the death of JMM leader Shibu Soren. The effective strength of both the Houses together is 781 and the winning candidate will require 391 votes, considering that all eligible voters exercise their franchise.
In the Lok Sabha, the BJP-led NDA enjoys the support of 293 of the 542 members. In the Rajya Sabha, the ruling alliance has the support of 129 members, giving it an effective strength of 240 if the members who have been nominated vote in favor of the NDA nominee. As a result, approximately 422 people support the ruling alliance. Article 66 (1) of the Constitution provides that the vice presidential election shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, and the voting at such an election shall be by secret ballot.
The elector must mark preferences against the names of the candidates in this system. The position of vice president is the nation's second-highest constitutional office. He has a five-year term, but he can stay in office until a successor takes over, regardless of when the term ends.