AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday announced that his party will back the Opposition candidate, former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy, in the upcoming vice-presidential election.

Owaisi said that Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy personally reached out to him seeking AIMIM’s support. “@TelanganaCMO spoke to me today and requested that we support Justice Sudershan Reddy as Vice President. @aimim_national will extend its support to Justice Reddy, a fellow Hyderabadi and a respected jurist. I also spoke to Justice Reddy and expressed our best wishes to him,” Owaisi wrote on X.

The announcement comes ahead of the September 9 polls, which were necessitated by the sudden resignation of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar. While the NDA has fielded Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan as its candidate, the INDIA bloc has put forward Justice Reddy as its choice.

The Vice President of India is elected through an indirect vote by an electoral college consisting of elected and nominated members of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Unlike in presidential elections, state assemblies have no role in the process. The voting system follows proportional representation with a single transferable vote, and MPs are free to cast ballots independently as there is no party whip.