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| Schedule for vice presidential poll this week | | |
NEW DELHI, JUL 1 The schedule to elect a successor to Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat is expected to be out this week, when the Presidential poll process will have moved to the campaigning stage.
A final decision on the schedule will be taken soon after Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami returns here on July five, sources said.
Shekhawat's term ends on August 18 and his successor will have to be in place before that date. The schedule last time was announced on July 10 and the election took place on August 12.
The election is to be held within 60 days of the expiry of the term of the outgoing Vice President.
The electoral college for the Vice President consists of members of both Houses of Parliament, in accordance with the proportional representation system. The vote is by means of the single transferable vote and the voting is by secret ballot.
The ruling UPA alliance along with the Left parties and the BSP have a comfortable majority to ensure the victory of its nominee.
With the Presidential poll process turning out to be a major controversy, the talks in the ruling alliance for selection of a vice presidential candidate appear to have taken a backseat.
While CPI leaders like A B Bardhan and D Raja have said that the post should go to non-Congress parties, CPI-M leader Prakash Karat has suggested there is no hard and fast rule in the matter.
Reports said the Left parties have some internal tussle on the issue, while the DMK, a key ally that played a crucial role in the selection of Presidential nominee, too is interested in bagging the post.
This is notwithstanding frequent denials by DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
A section of the Congress, however, feels that the post should go to the party in view of the fact that the Speaker of Lok Sabha is from the Left party.
This section also points out that a Vice President is generally the first contender for the post of the next President and so it would be in the fitness of things to have its own nominee.
As against this, there is also a realisation that the Congress will have to listen to coalition compulsions and hand over the Vice Presidentship to its allies as part of a package deal on the Presidential election.
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