NEW DELHI, Aug 10: Former diplomat Mohammed Hamid Ansari was elected India’s vice-president on Friday, easily defeating his opposition-backed rival, a senior official said.

Ansari, nominated by India’s ruling Congress party, won 455 votes, more than double the number cast for Najma Heptullah, the Hindu nationalist BJP party candidate, in elections in New Delhi, the official said.

The 70-year-old Ansari was elected by India’s electoral college which comprises 788 MPs from the national parliament’s two houses.

Rashid Masood, sponsored by fringe parties, finished third with 75 votes in the all-Muslim contest which Ansari had been tipped to win.

Ansari will succeed Bhairon Singh Shekhawat who resigned on July 21 after being trounced in the hotly-contested presidential elections by Pratibha Patil, a relatively-obscure politician who is now India’s first woman head of state.

“Mr Ansari will take an oath on Saturday at a ceremony in the presidential palace,” said parliamentary affairs minister P.R. Dasmunsi.

Ansari has served as India’s representative in the United Nations as well as an ambassador to war-torn Afghanistan in the late 1990s.—AFP