The Stepping Down of Jagdeep Dhankhar: Didn’t the VP Deserve Better?

What made Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar submit his resignation? No one knows for sure. The public space is reverberating with speculations and debates as to why Dhankhar decided to call it quits! However, what becomes clear from the heated discussions is that Dhankhar did not decide to call it a day all of a sudden.

That actually means, the Vice President had been a worried man for quite some time, and the reason for worry is that he wasn’t treated by the government as he should have been. The long list of demands that has surfaced on what all the Vice President is entitled to, proves to be something very serious. Though the talk of PM Modi and Co’s displeasure at the way Dhankhar decide to go ahead with the impeachment of the tainted Justice Yashwant Varma was just a trigger for his resignation being tendered.

The impeachment motion of Justice Yashwant Varma came with the backing of the Opposition and this is not something the government circles loved to digest. It is not that the government did not express its displeasure over Dhankhar’s acceptance of the Opposition proposal, it indeed did. But then, the impeachment issue needed to be seen as genuine considering that Justice Varma had a huge stash of currency at his home. That itself called for action against him. What Dhankhar did was only any law abiding citizen with authority to take action could have done. In short, the government erred in handling the case.

Impeaching a Tainted Judge

Naturally, Dhankhar was peeved. This act from the government needs to be seen as the tipping point for the vice president, who was left worried in many instances before. The government’s flaw was that they refused to gauge the aftereffect. Dhankhar’s move to go ahead with the impeachment motion after having received signatures for MPs who sit in the Opposition benches obviously upset the Union Ministry’s head honchos.

Though the government had noted that a proposal in the Lok Sabha, followed by it in the Rajya Sabha, would bring about a consensus on the impeachment of Justice Varma, Dhankhar did not seem to have the inclination to wait.

This episode looks like it was just the last one in a long list of reasons for Dhankhar to quit. The Indian Vice President’s wish to host and hold high level parleys with US Vice President Vance when he arrived in India on a visit was also in for some snubbing. The government’s stand that Vance was arriving in India to deliver a message from President Trump to PM Modi, and the high level meeting between the two vice presidents being off the table, irked Dhankhar to a large extent. He suddenly must have seen himself being sidelined.

Dhankhar Sidelined for No Reason

That wasn’t all. Dhankhar’s displeasure had come about owing to other demands that weren’t met. He had wished to have his photograph alongside the Prime Minister’s and President’s pictures at all government offices. He also wanted his fleet of cars to be upgraded to Mercedes-Benz vehicles and had even asked for the same to be done so many times. But that demand too was swept under the carpet.

Dhankhar, as we realise, was hurt. And the Union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi was absolutely not concerned. As soon as Dhankhar resigned, citing health issues, PM Modi’s tweet explains the manner in which he was sidelined for long. In a post on X, the Prime Minister tweeted this:

“Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar Ji has got many opportunities to serve our country in various capacities, including as the Vice President of India. Wishing him good health.”

Many users on X opined that the tweet was dull and looked like a forced one.

All said, Dhankhar has stepped down. The resignation speaks volumes about how the Centre saw its Vice President. And, that doesn’t augur well for the government. As mentioned earlier, a real reason for Dhankhar calling it quits is not yet fully clear. But the events that led him to take the sudden step wasn’t sudden at all. Nor are they silly. The Vice President should have been heard and understood better by the ministers at the Centre and the administrative machinery. Dhankhar, indeed, deserved better.