Vice Presidential Elections to be held on Sept 9, 2025

The Election Commission of India has announced that the election to elect the 15th Vice-President will be held on September 9, 2025. The notification for the election will be issued on 7th August and the last date for filing nomination is August 21. The scrutiny of nomination will take place on August 22 and the deadline for the withdrawal of candidatures is August 25.

The Election Commission of India has appointed Mr. P C Mody, Secretary General of Rajya Sabha as the Returning Officer of the Election.

Electoral college

The electoral college for the election of the Vice President includes both the elected and nominated members of both Houses of Parliament.

For the 15th Vice-Presidential Election, the Electoral College consists of:

● 233 elected members of Rajya Sabha (Presently 05 seats are vacant),

● 12 nominated members of Rajya Sabha, and

● 543 elected members of Lok Sabha (Presently 1 seat is vacant)

Electoral College comprises a total of 788 members (Presently, 782 members) of both the houses of the Parliament.

Voting process

● The election shall be held in accordance with the system of Proportional Representation by means of Single Transferable Vote.

● In this system the elector has to mark preferences against the names of the candidates. Preference has to be marked in figures only and shall not be indicated in words.

● The elector can mark as many preferences as the number of candidates. While the marking of the first preference is compulsory for the ballot paper to be valid, other preferences are optional.

● The voting for the Vice President election shall be by secret ballot. There is no concept of open voting in this election and showing the ballot to anyone under any circumstances is totally prohibited.

● For marking the vote the Commission will supply particular pens. The pen will be given to the electors in the polling station by the designated official when the ballot paper is handed over.

● Electors have to mark the ballot only with this particular pen and not with any other pen. Voting by using any other pen shall lead to invalidation of the ballot paper.

● Political Parties are prohibited from issuing a Whip to their members for this election and any violation of secrecy or improper voting procedure will result in cancellation of the ballot.

● To eliminate non-serious candidates, the nomination paper of a candidate must be proposed by at least 20 members of the Electoral College and seconded by at least 20 members of the Electoral College. Every candidate has to submit a security deposit of Rs. 15000/-. The security deposit of candidates securing less than 1/6 of valid votes is forfeited.

Note - The voting will take place on 9th September at the Parliament House from 10 am to 5pm, followed by the Counting of votes. The result will be declared by the evening. Mr.. P C Mody will give the winning certificate to the winning candidate and will submit his report to the Election Commission of India about the Vice President Elect.

The newly elected Vice President will be administered the Oath of Office by the President.

It is expected that the whole opposition will field a common candidate against the ruling NDA Alliance candidate as they did so in the last Vice Presidential Election in 2022.