Jagdeep Dhankhar Takes Vice President Oath:
Jagdeep Dhankhar, a former governor of West Bengal, was sworn in as India’s 14th vice president. Dhankhar received the oath from President Droupadi Murmu during a brief ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Among the dignitaries in attendance at the ceremony were Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Dhankhar’s predecessor, M Venkaiah Naidu. Both Houses of Parliament will be led by Rajasthani leaders, with Dhankhar serving as both the chairman of the Rajya Sabha and vice president concurrently.
Dhankar, the nominee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for vice president, defeated opposition candidate Margaret Alva by 346 votes. According to the Lok Sabha Secretariat, 725 votes were cast out of a total of 780. Dhankar received 528 votes, while Alva received 182. There were 50 absentee ballots, and 15 of them were deemed invalid.
President Droupadi Murmu administered oath of Office of Vice President to Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar at a Swearing-in-Ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan pic.twitter.com/Vrum223CXj
— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 11, 2022
Dhankhar was born in 1951 to a farmer family in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district and attended a local government school before attending Sainik school in Chittorgarh. Sudesh Dhankhar is his wife.
Dhankhar had been a one-man opposition since his appointment as Bengal governor, regularly taking on the TMC government on a variety of issues. The Governor and the state government were at odds to the point where CM Banerjee blocked Dhankhar on social media.
According to the Raj Bhavan website, Dhankhar enjoys reading, sports (he has served as president of the Rajasthan Olympic Association and the Rajasthan Tennis Association), and travelling with his family.
