With 393 first votes required to win the vice-presidential election, UPA-Left nominee Hamid Ansari is expected to sail through smoothly. Voting is scheduled for Friday.

Ansari is far ahead of his two rivals in the number game, as the UPA-Left, along with the BSP, commands the support of 425 MPs of a total 783 members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The other two candidates, who are in the fray, are Najma Heptulla of the NDA and Rasheed Masood of the UNPA. Helptulla has the backing of 240 MPs, while Masood commands the support of only 81 MPS.

Since the ruling alliance is expecting an easy and comfortable win, parliamentary affairs minister PR Dasmunsi has declined to hazard guess as to how many votes Ansari would secure in the electoral college, which at present has a strength of 783 members. Repeating its fortune in the presidential poll last month, Opposition NDA is again set to lose some of its partners in this election, too.

Mamata Banerjee?s Trinamool Congress, though, deciding to vote this time, is yet to declare its choice of candidate. ?Whom we vote for in the vice-presidential election is a secret. We have four MPs and it will take only a minute to decide our choice,? Banerjee said in Kolkata. Similarly, BJP?s coalition partner in Karnataka, JD(S), has decided to abstain from voting. The party chief and former Prime Minister HD Deve

Gowda said, ?The national executive of our party has committed itself time and again to maintaining an equidistance with both Congress and BJP at the national level and this time we will not even vote in favour of UNPA candidate Masood.?