Former Rajasthan Governor Margaret Alva will be the joint Opposition candidate for the August 6 vice-presidential elections.
The decision to field Ms Alva, 80, was taken at a meeting of Opposition leaders of 17 parties at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief, Sharad Pawar, and comes day after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) announced West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar as its candidate.
“It is a privilege and an honour to be nominated as the candidate of the joint opposition for the post of Vice President of India. I accept this nomination with great humility and thank the leaders of the opposition for the faith they’ve put in me. Jai Hind,”Ms Alva tweeted soon after her name was announced as the Opposition candidate.
She will be filing her nomination papers on July 19, which is also the last date for filing nomination.
“We have unanimously decided to field Margaret Alva as our joint candidate for the post of Vice President,” Mr Pawar announced after the two-hour meeting.
Sources said her name was finalised after informal consultations between Mr Pawar, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
When her name was discussed for approval by others in the meeting, the sources cited above claimed that few leaders wanted to know if it had the approval of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
Mr Kharge is said to have then informed the leaders that the decision was taken after consulting Ms Gandhi.
Addressing mediapersons, Mr Pawar said a total of 17 parties have unanimously taken the decision to field her and with the support of Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Aam Aadmi Party AAP), Ms Alva will be the joint candidate of 19 parties.
"We are trying to contact Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal. Last time they supported our joint presidential candidate,"Mr Pawar said, adding that even Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is together with opposition parties in this election.
Leaders who attended the meeting at the NCP chief’s houses included Congress' Jairam Ramesh, CPI's D Raja and Binoy Viswam, Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut, DMK's T R Baalu and Tiruchi Siva, Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav, MDMK's Vaiko, TRS' K Keshava Rao besides Mr Kharge and Mr Yechury.
Rashtriya Janata Dal's A D Singh, Indian Union Muslim League's E T Mohammed Basheer and Kerala Congress (M)'s Jose K. Mani were also present.
The electoral college for the VP poll is made up of the 788 members of Parliament (543 Lok Sabha and 245 Rajya Sabha) and the numbers are heavily stacked in favour of the ruling NDA.With eight existing vacancies, the halfway mark is 390.
The NDA candidate could get anywhere between 450 votes to over 520 votes, depending on whether a few Opposition parties like Biju Janata Dal, YSR Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and Janata Dal (Secular) support Mr Dhankar, just the way they did for NDA’s Presidential nominee, Droupadi Murmu.
The Opposition, on the other hand, can expect a little over 250 votes, which is way below the halfway mark.
“Everyone knows the outcome but it was decided that the VP’s post should not go uncontested. Margaret Alva was a unanimous choice as she is not only a dignified woman leader, who represents the minority Christian community, but also ann able administrator,”said an Opposition leader.
“We are all together in this election,"said Sena leader Mr Raut, whose party has supported Ms Murmu in the presidential polls
Congress’ communication chief, Jairam Ramesh, tweeted,“Margaret Alva, former Governor, former Union Minister, long time MP and very distinguished representative of India's wonderful diversity is the common Opposition candidate for Vice-President”
“Congratulations @alva_margaret! Having known you since your visits to the @UN thirty-plus years ago, I am delighted that such an able, worthy & qualified candidate will represent us in the race,” added Congress’ Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor.
