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Friday,
July 19, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Shinde Oppn choice for
Vice-President New Delhi, July 18 Mr Shinde, Lok Sabha member and former Maharashtra Finance Minister, will be the candidate of the Congress, Left, NCP and some other opposition parties. Announcing this here today, Congress chief spokesman S. Jaipal Reddy said before nominating
Mr Shinde the Opposition held extensive consultations on the issue. Mr Reddy said Congress President Sonia Gandhi had taken the initiative to hold discussions on the subject with Left party leaders Harkishan Singh Surjeet, and A.B. Bardhan, RJD leader Laloo Prasad Yadav and Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh. The NCP had also supported the candidature of Mr Shinde, who belonged to Scheduled Caste community. He said there was a strong favourable indication from the Samajwadi Party. The party was in the process of taking a formal decision in this regard, he said. Virtually launching the election campaign of Mr Shinde, the Congress spokesman said three of the four top political
offices in the country were sought to be occupied by the hard-core products of the RSS. He said that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Mr Shekhawat who was contesting the post of Vice-President, proudly claim to have been the products of the RSS. “This is not merely communalisation of the NDA but of the Indian polity,” he maintained. Looking for support from the NDA allies, Mr Reddy said in the past few months all non-Hindutva NDA parties had been completely marginalised. He said such parties who still claimed to be secular owed an explanation to the nation over “brazen communalisation” of the polity by the BJP. Describing it as a “principled contest for the constitutional office,” Mr Reddy said the party expected all right-thinking people to sit up and take notice. Having named a Dalit leader as its candidate, the Congress and other Opposition parties are also banking
on unexpected support from Dalit MPs belonging to the NDA parties. The Left parties also declared their support to Mr Shinde. “The Left parties have all along maintained that a political contest must take place for the post of the President and Vice-President given the present political context in the country,” the CPM, CPI, RSP and the Forward Bloc said in a joint statement.
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Shekhawat files
papers New Delhi, July 18 Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and NDA Convener and Defence Minister George Fernandes were among the 21 proposers for Shekhawat’s nomination. The 79-year-old Shekhawat, who had been Chief Minister of Rajasthan thrice, had a clear edge over his rival Sushil Kumar Shinde, being put up jointly by the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party and Left parties, with the TDP, the BSP and the AIADMK pledging support to him. Soon after filing the nomination, Mr Shekhawat, who looked cheerful and confident, predicted an “easy victory” for himself. He claimed that he would receive support from “several others” in the opposition, but declined to elaborate. “I have mixed feelings on moving to Delhi and feel sad at severing ties with the party I have served dutifully for over five decades,” Mr Shekhawat, who posed for photographs with Mr Vajpayee, Mr Advani and Finance Minister Jaswant Singh as he emerged out of the Returning Officer and Lok Sabha Secretary-General G.C. Malhotra’s office, said. The NDA nominee chose to ignore statements of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot attacking him, but said he would get ‘solid support’ from the state in the election. A shrewd political manager with an amiable temperament, Mr Shekhawat is one of the most popular leaders of the BJP, who has friends across the political spectrum. Mr Shekhawat, had plunged into politics after getting out of high school. Born on October 23, 1923, at a village in Sikar district of Rajasthan, Mr Shekhawat was first elected to the Rajasthan Assembly in 1952 and remained a member till 1972. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1974 to 1977. He then returned to state politics with election to the Assembly in 1977. He became the Chief Minister for the first time in the same year and was again elected to the post in 1990. He became the Chief Minister for the third time in 1993. As Chief Minister, he was instrumental in introduction of the innovative scheme of Antyodya (development of the poorest) in 1977, which had subsequently been adopted by many other states. |
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