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| Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh congratulating the Vice President-elect, Mohd. Hamid Ansari, in New Delhi |
New Delhi: United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate Mohammed Hamid Ansari today re-elected as Vice President of India.
He emerged as a clear winner against National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) nominee Jaswant Singh by a margin of 252 votes.
The 75-year-old Ansari first became Vice President in the year 2007. Earlier, he had worked as an ambassador and served as Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University from 2000 to 2002. Later he was Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities from 2006 to 2007.
Notably, in India, the Vice President is elected by an electoral college consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament, in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and the voting in such election is by secret ballot. The electoral college to elect a person to the office of the Vice-President consists of all members of both Houses of Parliament.