Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh on Thursday rejected a no-confidence motion moved by the Opposition INDIA bloc against Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, calling it “severely flawed” and holding it as “an act of impropriety”.

The notice was “replete with assertions only to malign” the vice president, said the deputy chairman.

On December 10, Opposition MPs submitted the notice seeking the removal of Dhankhar, accusing him of conducting the proceedings of the Upper House of Parliament in an “extremely partisan manner”.

The notice was submitted under Article 67(b) of the Constitution, which states that the vice president may be removed from his office if a resolution is passed by the Council of States, or Rajya Sabha, and agreed to by the House of the People, which is the Lok Sabha.

“But no resolution for the purpose of this clause shall be moved unless at least fourteen days’ notice has been given of the intention to move the resolution,” it states.

Citing this rule, Harivansh said on Thursday: “Thus, December 10, 2024, notice of intention could permit such a resolution only after December 24, 2024.”

He pointed out that the Winter Session of Parliament will end on December 20.

The deputy chairman said that the Opposition had moved the resolution, despite knowing it cannot be brought before the House during the ongoing session, “only to set a narrative against 2nd highest constitutional office and the vice president”.

“A look at the notice reveals it could not be more casual and cavalier, wanting on every conceivable aspect and severally flawed – absence of addressee, absence of resolution text, incumbent vice president’s name not correctly spelt in the entire petition, documents and videos asserted not made part, premised on links of disjointed media reports without authentication and many more,” he stated.

Harivansh added: “The notice’s lack of bona fides, and subsequent events unfolding revealed it being a calculated unwholesome attempt to garnish publicity; run down the constitutional institution; insinuate the personal image of the incumbent vice president.”

The Opposition had moved the motion after days of uproar in the Rajya Sabha, with members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance accusing the Congress leadership of colluding with billionaire philanthropist George Soros to “destabilise” India.

The BJP has for long alleged that Soros, a 94-year-old Hungarian-American, has “designs to weaken Indian democracy”.

Citing an investigation by the French investigative journalism outlet Mediapart into the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the Hindutva party earlier this month alleged that Soros and the United States’ Department of State were backing a campaign to “destabilise” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Mediapart’s publisher and director Carine Fouteau, however, on December 8 accused the BJP of distorting its reporting to promote a “conspiracy theory”.

Congress leaders had questioned why Dhankhar had allowed a debate on the BJP’s allegations while rejecting several discussion points raised by the Opposition.