The umpire who took sides: Dhankhar’s polarising legacy as vice president

Your concerns for the farmers’ protest are crocodile tears.”

“RSS is like a global think tank of the highest order.”

Any guesses who said all this?

These aren’t lines from a Sangh spokesperson. They were all said inside Parliament — by none other than Jagdeep Dhankhar, who, until recently, was the Vice President of India.

Now, on paper, the role of Vice President sounds pretty unremarkable. The Constitution says he’s the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. And if the President is ever unavailable, he steps in. That’s it.

But in his three-year tenure, Dhankhar managed to turn this mostly ceremonial office into a political battlefield.

He’s now stepped down, citing health reasons. But the politics around his resignation — and his entire term — tells a much bigger story.

Watch.