Click to play videoNew Delhi: Hamid Ansari has been elected as India's 13th Vice-President. The UPA-Left nominee polled 455 votes as against NDA candidate, Najma Heptullah's 222 votes and UNPA candidate, Rashid Masood's 75 votes.
The election was held after former Vice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat resigned following his defeat in the Presidential elections last month.
And though Najma Heptullah may have lost , she has brought the BJP and Shiv Sena together.
In the bitter fight for the President's post, Shiv Sena had abandoned its ally BJP to support the Marathi Pratibha Patil. A worried BJP tried to reach out to its Maharashtra ally.
So, when following a call from BJP President Rajnath Singh to Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, Shiv Sena MPs decided to vote for Najma and the coalition was back on track.
Shiv Sena MP, Manohar Joshi put it aptly saying that the split between the two parties was over.
So while BJP got its ally back, the country got its 13th Vice-President. Hamid Ansari is a scholar, a career diplomat, and was chairperson of the Minorities Commission. He was also the Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University.
Choosing Hamid Ansari wasn't difficult. Unlike in the case of Pratibha Patil, there weren't too many deliberations over his name. Hamid Ansari was the first and only choice of the Left, and this time around, Sonia Gandhi couldn't refuse.
It may not have had the colour and controversy of the Presidential elections, but the Vice-Presidential polls had its effect on future of coalition politics in the country.
This was evident with the newly formed UNPA attempting to register its presence by naming their own candidate, Rashid Masood and also with the fact that the divide between parties in the NDA and UNPA -- some of NDA's former allies -- was complete with these polls.
It's obvious now that when the nation goes to polls in 2009, its the three coalitions -- UPA, NDA and UNPA -- which will play an important role. In a sense the Presidential elections were the beginning of new political alignments.
(With inputs from Smitha Nair in New Delhi)
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