New Delhi, July 16: It is official that the election for the post of Vice-President will not go uncontested.
 As expected the BJP-led NDA has decided to make a contest out of it and has fielded former Union Minister and veteran party leader Jaswant Singh for the post to face Vice-President and UPA nominee Hamid Ansari.
 The NDA conglomerate met here on Monday morning to discuss whether to field a candidate or support Ansari.
 Later, senior BJP leader L K Advani announced that there was complete unanimity on the name of the Member of Parliament from Darjeeling.
  “Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh is NDA's Vice Presidential candidate,” he said.
 The name of NDA convenor and senior JD-U leader was also being mentioned for the past few days. Although his name cropped up during discussion but he expressed his inability to contest the election. Significantly, the JD-U had backed Pranab Mukherjee for Presidential election. But the party decided to go back to the NDA ranks on the Vice-Presidential poll issue.
  “All the NDA allies in today’s meet decided unanimously that we should put up our candidate for the Vice President and put up a fight. And the name of Jaswant was approved by everyone,” the BJP patriarch added. At the same time Yadav expressed his full support to Jaswant Singh’s name and described his party’s stand on Presidential candidate as an aberration.
 Referring to the UPA’s nominee and incumbent Vice President Hamid Ansari, Advani said that the NDA did not approve of his name because of the role that he played in scuttling the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha on December 29, 2011.
 Knowing fully well that the UPA nominee’s re-election as Vice-president was a foregone conclusion, the BJP decided to enter the fray to reiterate party’s belief that it would not like to be seen going with its arch-rival Congress. This, the saffron party feels, is necessary to draw the political battlelines ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
 Mystery still remains about the stance the Trinamool Congress, a main UPA ally, will take both in the Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections. The party which is having uneasy relations with the Congress proposed the names of former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi and freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose's niece and former Lok Sabha member Krishna Bose.
 However, Gandhi later clarified that he was not in the race for the Vice President’s post. "I have thanked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for having thought of me and suggested to the UPA partners my name for the Vice-Presidential election,” he said yesterday.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
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