Contenders For India's Vacant Vice President Post

Source - Sarkari tel

On 21 June 2025, India's vice president Jagdeep Dhankar tendered his resignation as the Vice President of India citing health reasons. The resignation was sudden and no one really saw it coming, as the monsoon session of the Parliament had just begun. With his resignation, he became only the third vice president in Indian history after VV Giri & R Venkataraman who resigned in 1970s. With the resignation of Jagdeep Dhankar, a fresh race has begun in the country on who could potentially succeed him as the next VP, as the VP of India is also the chairperson of Rajya Sabha. Additionally, VP also has added responsibilities like having the duty of being India's abroad representative and having a consulting role with the President of India. The post is so critical, that the constitution of India has articles about it from article 63 to 71, which falls under Part 5 of Indian constitution.

Here are the following names who can succeed the outgoing VP Jagdeep Dhankar. Since, the NDA and the ruling BJP have a comfortable majority in the parliament, its common knowledge that the next VP will be from the NDA itself. Also, looking at the track records of the NDA in the past, in relation to the VP election, the BJP during the time of  Narendra Modi & Atal Bihari Vajpayee, have often went ahead with faces who are otherwise popular in the country. The 4 vice presidents of the BJP or the NDA era have been - Shri. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat from Rajasthan who was a popular CM back in 1993-1998, Shri. Jagdeep Dhankar who was popular governor in the politically crucial state of West Bengal and was in media limelight and Shri. Venkaiah Naidu a former National BJP president. The vice presidents picks of NDA have been popular and do enjoy a lot of experience along with the support of the common man, who may not be interested in politics.

Another common theme is that, NDA has usually preferred to pick its VPs from different states and has usually picked Vice presidents, who hail from dominant communities(socio-economic & politically), the above people belong to critical voting blocs like Rajputs, Khammas and Jats, who hold sway in politically important states. This is primarily because the 3 presidential candidates of NDA have been - Shri. APJ Abdul Kalam, Shri. Ram Nath Kovind and incumbent Smt. Droupadi Murmu, who have belonged from the less dominant communities in India. Hence, the probability of NDA continuing its trend of appointing a VP from a dominant community looks highly possible.

Thus in all probabilities, the next Vice President of India must be logically from a dominant community from a politically important state of India.

1. Dr. Harivansh Narayan Singh - Dr. Harivansh is the current Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha, he belongs to the JDU party which is an important constituent of NDA. Dr. Harivansh is an old timer Rajya Sabha MP who has chaired crucial sessions for over the past few years now. He belongs to the Bhumihar community which is dominant in Bihar & Purvanchal and has been a career journalist before transitioning into politics in the older times. Dr. Harivansh is known to be an accessible, affable and a smart politician, who enjoys good ties with PM Narendra Modi.

2. Vasundhara Raje - Vasundhara Raje is perhaps one name which  is not being discussed a lot in the media. She has been a popular and a veteran BJP politician, now actively a member of Indian electoral politics from 1987 onwards. She has been a 2 time Rajasthan CM along with being a former Minister of State during the reign of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999-2004. She comes from the Maratha lineage with a background in Jat and Rajput families, which makes her a very strong contender for the post. Her political experience along with  her being a woman face, a bloc on which PM Modi has tried to constantly nurturesince many years, makes her a strong candidate for this post.

3. Nitish Kumar - Nitish Kumar may end up being one of the darkhorses in the race for the post of Vice President. Its a well known fact that the 9 time CM of Bihar has had Prime Ministerial ambitions from a lot of time, almost since 2009. Nitish Kumar is currently serving as the Bihar CM. Since Nitish Kumar belongs from a Kurmi community(categorized as OBC community) which has influence in, Purvanchal, Bihar, Jharkhand, parts of West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Making a tall leader from this community, can actually consolidate votes for the NDA in the upcoming Bihar elections, where the NDA suffered minor setbacks during the Lok Sabha elections, due to the erosion of support from this community. 

Additionally, since the past few elections like in Jharkhand 2024 VS elections or the UP 2024 LS elections, the Kurmi votes have shown signs of drifting away from the BJP, which the BJP would like to consolidate before the next election, one example is the loss of BJP in kurmi dominated seat of Basti/Ambedkar Nagar in UP. Also, having Nitish Kumar as the Vice President, would allow BJP to get its own CM in Bihar, something which many BJP supporters have wanted in the past. Additionally, the Bihar elections 2025 will be a close elections, as the fatigue factor against a 18 year old CM may come into play, which the BJP wont be risking at a time, when they have not won the majority by their own in the Lok Sabha. Furthemore, appointing Nitish Kumar as the VP would make Bihar move into a new generation of politics, where leaders like - Chirag Paswan, Tejasvi Yadav, Prashant Kishore, Nitin Navin, Samrat Choudhary and probably Nishant Kumar, would be critical figures.

4. O. Paneerselvam - O. Paneerselvam also known as OPS can also be a potential contender for the post of Vice President. The reason being that, OPS has served multiple stints as the CM of Tamil Nadu. He is currently locked in a legal tussle with AIADMK supremo EPS over his sacking as the co-coordinator of AIADMK. OPS also belongs from the influential Thevar community and with OPS's appointment  as the Vice President, the BJP would ideally like to reach out to this section of Tamil Nadu voters, who had voted for the NDA sans AIADMK in good numbers in 2024 LS . OPS has also been a politician, who is percieved being close to the central leadership of the BJP. Furthermore, his community is critical swing voter in the Southern Tamil Nadu districts.

Additionally, it would help BJP to rub off the tag of being anti Tamil, which is critical as the state goes to assembly elections next year, with routine anti incumbency on DMK being in play. If the NDA indeeds makes OPS as their Vice President candidate, then, NDA will have a good chance of forming its own government in Tamil Nadu. However, how much probability will that have, also depends on other local factors like the rise of Thalapathy Vijay's TVK, NTK & the coalition dynamics. Also, making a Vice President candidate from the state of Tamil Nadu, will allow BJP to win over the votes of the DMK, as the DMK wont like to risk itself to be seen as Anti Tamil before the VS elections. Making OPS as the VP face, would also allow BJP to expand more aggressively into the Thevar community, in addition to getting access to some of the cadres of AIADMK who are still loyalists of OPS. This would push, BJP for negotiating harder in the VS elections, another demand something which has been raised by the Sangh Parivar in TN.

5. Other Names - In case, the BJP does not want to continue its tradition of picking up powerful Vice Presidents, or want to change their community composition,some other names can be of Nitin Gadkari, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, P. Sreedharan Pillai, CP Rajashekar, Baby Rani Maurya, Arjun Ram Meghwal amongst others.

At the end of day, within a few days time the country will get a new Vice President and the  Rajya Sabha till then will function under the guidance of the Deputy Chairman. Also, the country would want to see a new Vice President as early as possible, as the country can not risk delaying a political appointment, as it can hurt the investment forecasts, trade forecats and economic forecasts of the country, in the longer run. Also, given the BJP and NDA have a tendency to surprise everyone with their choices, maybe a new Vice President from out of the blue can emerge in the country as well.