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QUALIFICATIONS, OATH AND CONDITIONS


Qualifications

To be eligible for election as Vice-President, a person should fulfil the following qualifications:

1. He should be a citizen of India.

2. He should have completed 35 years of age.

3. He should be qualified for election as a member of the Rajya Sabha.

4. He should not hold any office of profit under the Union government or any state government or any local authority or any other public authority.


Table 18.1 Elections of the Vice-Presidents (1952–2017)


Sl. Election Victorious No. Year Candidate

No. of Votes secured

Runner-up Candidate

No. of Votes secured

1. 1952 Dr. S.

Radhakrishnan

-

Unopposed

-

2. 1957 Dr. S.

Radhakrishnan

-

Unopposed

-

3. 1962 Dr. Zakir

Hussain

568

N. Samant Singh

14

4. 1967 V.V. Giri

486

Prof. Habib

192

5. 1969 G.S. Pathak

400

H.V.

Kamath

156

6. 1974 B.D. Jatti

521

N.E. Horo

141

7. 1979 M.

Hidayatullah

-

unopposed

-

8. 1984 R.

Venkataraman

508

B.C.

Kambley

207

9. 1987 Dr. Shankar

-

unopposed

-

Dayal Sharma

10. 1992

K.R.

Narayanan

700

Kaka Joginder Singh

01

11. 1997

Krishna Kant

441

Surjeet Singh Barnala

273

12. 2002

B.S.

Shekhawat

454

Shushil Kumar Shinde

305

13. 2007 Mohd. Hamid 455 Najma 222

Ansari Heptullah

14. 2012 Mohd. Hamid 490 Jaswant 238

Ansari Singh

15. 2017

Venkaiah Naidu

516

Gopal Krishna Gandhi

244

But, a sitting President or Vice-President of the Union, the governor of any state and a minister for the Union or any state is not deemed to hold any office of profit and hence qualified for being a candidate for Vice-President.

Further, the nomination of a candidate for election to the office of Vice-President must be subscribed by at least 20 electors as proposers and 20 electors as seconders. Every candidate has to make a security deposit of ₹15,000 in the Reserve Bank of India.4