Bengal Guv Jagdeep Dhankhar Is BJP’s VP Candidate

| Updated: 16 July, 2022 9:22 pm IST

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar met PM Narendra Modi before announcement of his candidature for Vice President's post on Saturday.

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as its Vice-Presidential candidate after a meeting of its Parliamentary Board on Saturday evening.

“The decision was reached upon after discussing multiple names,” said BJP president JP Nadda.

Governor Dhankhar, who is in Delhi, had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the announcement on Saturday. He had also met Union home minister Amit Shah a day before.

Calling him ‘People’s Governor’, Nadda said that he was born in a farmer’s family and is a very capable administrator with a long administrative experience. “Governor Dhankhar has been a governor who has ruled people’s heart,” Nadda said.

Born in 1951 in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu, Governor Dhankhar completed his basic schooling from his village Kithana. Later, he cleared the Sainik School examination and was admitted in the school on full scholarship. He passed out from the Rajasthan University in 1979 with an LLB degree.

Talking about his academic excellence, Nadda said that Dhankhar completed his schooling with exceptional achievements.

“Governor Dhankhar is not only the first-generation lawyer in his family but also had a very established law practice in the Supreme Court,” the BJP chief said.

Dhankhar assumed charge of the office of the West Bengal Governor on July 30, 2019. A vocal critic of the Mamata Banerjee government, he had publicly criticised the state government on multiple occasions.

After the massive post-poll violence in Bengal last year, he had criticised the TMC government for the complete collapse of the law and order machinery.

The last date to file nomination for the vice-presidential election is July 19.

Nadda said that the date of filing nomination papers of Dhankhar will be announced later.

Members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will be voting to elect the successor of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.

Members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha vote to elect the vice-president. Of the current strength of 780, the BJP has 394 members, three MPs more than the required number to win the poll.