New Delhi: The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is slated to meet on Saturday to name its candidate for the August 7 Vice Presidential election.
Incumbent Vice President Hamid Ansari is the frontrunner to retain the post after losing out to the UPA’s first choice Pranab Mukherjee as its nominee for the July 19 presidential election.
The UPA has comfortable majority in the Electoral College which comprises 790 elected lawmakers of both Houses of Parliament and its nominee is assured of victory.
The Congress party, which heads the UPA, has proposed Ansari for a second term. No other name is under discussion. However, the Trinamool Congress of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee could propose Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former West Bengal governor and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, for the post. Trinamool’s second choice is former lawmaker Krishna Bose, niece of freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
If elected, Ansari will become the second individual after the first Vice President S. Radhakrishnan to hold the office for two terms.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been talking to various UPA constituents and parties outside of the coalition to drum up support for Ansari to become their consensus candidate.
The opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is yet to meet and discuss the vice presidential election, though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that heads NDA is in favour of nominating its own candidate for the post.
Ansari is expected to get support from the Left Front as well as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The Left Front which had proposed Ansari as vice president in 2007 is likely to vote for him. Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) general secretary Prakash Karat has already said that their only condition is that the vice presidential candidate should not be from the Congress party.
The Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was originally against Ansari saying he did not favour a former bureaucrat either as president or vice president. Ansari was a career diplomat However, he is unlikely to oppose Ansari’s candidature after the centre agreed to a Rs4.5 trillion (Dh299 billion) package for Uttar Pradesh ruled by the Samajwadi Party.
