"Farmers Facing Crisis": BRS Leader On Party Not Voting For Vice President Polls

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) will abstain from voting in the Vice Presidential election today owing to the farmers' crisis in Telangana and its tensions with both the BJP and Congress, party leader KR Suresh Reddy told NDTV.

According to Mr Reddy, farmers in Telangana have been facing a crisis of fertilizers, for which they had appealed to the Centre seeking a solution, but "had no effect".

"For the last month, Telangana farmers have been facing a crisis of fertilizers, especially urea. We have appealed to the central government and the Telangana state government several times to resolve this crisis. But it has had no effect. Also, the BJP leadership in Telangana said that they do not need BRS's support for the Vice President election," he said.

On the other hand, the Congress-ruled state government in Telangana has been continuously taking unnecessary action against BRS workers, Mr Reddy said.

"This is the reason why BRS leadership has decided not to participate in the Vice President election. We know that our participation in the voting will not have much impact on the result of the election, but through this decision, we want to put the crisis of Telangana farmers in front of the country. We hope that we will definitely succeed in this effort," he said.

The decision of BRS to abstain from voting also comes amid the resignation of K Kavitha, party boss KCR's daughter.

The polls to elect a Vice President will be held today, with the contest between NDA's CP Radhakrishnan and the Opposition's B Sudershan Reddy. The voting will begin at 10 am and will continue till 5 pm. The counting of votes will begin after 6 pm, and the results will be declared later in the evening.

Both the candidates hail from southern India, with Mr Radhakrishnan from Tamil Nadu and Mr Reddy from Telangana.

The Vice Presidential election was necessitated after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned from the position on July 21, citing health reasons.

The BJP-led NDA alliance has a clear edge in winning the Vice Presidential election, although the margin of victory may not be as big as the past few polls, sources told NDTV.

At present, there are 239 Rajya Sabha MPs and 542 Lok Sabha MPs, all of whom are eligible to vote. However, with the BRS and ex-Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal (BJD) abstaining from voting, the total number of MPs voting comes down to 770, and the majority mark stands at 386.

Additionally, there is uncertainty over the Akali Dal, ZPM (from Mizoram) - each of whom has one MP - and over seven independent MPs in the Lok Sabha voting to elect the Vice President. If all of them voted for the NDA candidate, he could end up with 449 votes - less than what former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar received but more than enough to win the election.

The Opposition alliance, on the other hand, has a total of 315 votes.