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| NDA answers UPA's Muslim plank | | Heptullah to face Ansari in VP elections | |
ET REPORTER
Jammu, July 22: As the highest constitutional office in the country is used by the parties as a tool of appeasement politics, the BJP led National Democratic Alliance today did a tit for tat to the Congress led United Progressive Alliance and the Third Front for Vice Presidential elections.
The Congress and the Third Front had announced their Muslim candidates for the post of Vice President of India. While Congress led UPA had nominated the National Minorities Commission Chairman Hamid Ansari the Third Front too had nominated a Muslim MP of Samajwadi Party.
Rebuffing the UPA and the Third Front's minority appeasement attempts, the BJP led NDA today nominated former Rajya Sabha Deputy chairperson Najma Heptullah as their candidate for the Vice Presidential elections. With a triangular contest in the offing the country is all set to have a Muslim Vice President.
Unfazed by the defeat in Presidential elections, NDA leaders today went ahead and named Najma Heptullah as their Vice Presidential candidate in a meeting here in Sunday. She would be filing her nomination papers on Monday at 12.30 pm.
Some indications had emerged on Saturday night that former Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Najma Heptullah could be their nominee.
The NDA, which also toyed with idea of fielding a Dalit candidate, is now understood to have zeroed in on Heptullah after the two rival formations picked on Muslim candidates.
BJP sources said Heptullah, who was earlier reluctant to jump into the fray, has now given her consent.
In the wake of NDA-backed candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat losing to UPA-Left nominee Pratibha Patil by a margin of 210 votes in Parliament, the Congress demanded the Opposition alliance should not field a candidate in the August 10 election.
However, NDA leader Sushma Swaraj made it clear that they would not give the vice-presidentship on a platter to the ruling combine.
At a Friday meeting, Swatantra Bharat leader Sharad Joshi requested the NDA leadership to put him up as a candidate for the August 10 election, alliance sources said.
Names of BJP leaders Satnarayan Jatia and Thawar Chand Gehlot have also done the rounds.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), a party source said, has seen no merit in proposing Deputy Lok Sabha Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, who himself had been apparently keen to jump into the fray, as the candidate. "This will be an unnecessary obligation from the BJP when we know he will lose," an Akali leader said.
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