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New Delhi: The opposition declared former Union minister and veteran Congress leader Margaret Alva as its candidate for vice-presidential election, on Sunday. Addressing a press conference after an all-party meet by the opposition parties in New Delhi, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said that 17 parties are on board for this unanimous decision.
“Our collective thinking is Alva will file VP nomination on Tuesday,” he said. Pawar said a total of 17 parties have unanimously taken the decision to field her and with the support of Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party, she will be the joint candidate of a total of 19 parties.
“We are trying to contact Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal. Last time they supported our joint presidential candidate,” he said, adding that even JMM is together with opposition parties in this election.
Alva (80), who has also served as Governor of Uttarakhand and Rajasthan, and hails from Karnataka. She would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
The NDA has fielded West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar as its joint candidate for the post of Vice President.
The numbers in the electoral college are firmly stacked in favour of the ruling NDA combine.
Unlike the presidential election when the opposition camp had announced their nominee Yashwant Sinha ahead of NDA’s Droupadi Murmu, leading to several non BJP parties including even Congress allies Shiv Sena and the JMM veering towards Murmu, this time the like-minded parties wanted to wait for the announcement of the NDA candidate.
The last date for filing of nominations for the VP election is July 19.
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