The NDA is  not to  go for a consensus on the Vice-Presidential candidate  and may field  Deputy-speaker of the Lok Sabha C S Atwal as its nominee. “There is considerable bitterness during the presidential campaign and a consensus is now not possible on the Vice-Presidential post also,” BJP Vice-President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told Deccan Herald.

He said a non-Muslim could be the NDA candidate.  Mr Atwal, a second time scheduled caste MP from Phillaur (Punjab), is expected to be tipped for the Vice-Presidential post.  The proposed move from the NDA came after 58 MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha made a singed  appeal to all political parties to nominate and elect an SC/ST for Vice-Presidentship.

The possibility of a consensus candidate for the Vice-Presidential polls diminished on Thursday evening with the NDA deciding to go separately on the Vice-Presidential poll too.  Earlier in the day former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had given broad hints  of  a consensus on a candidate for the vice presidential poll. Asked whether he was concerned about the unity of NDA in the wake of Shiv Sena and the Trinamool Congress breaking ranks, he said “we will again be united”.

A section of the BJP  central leadership here  feels that the party slipped by not backing incumbent President A P J Abdul Kalam for the second term from the beginning and thus forcing the UPA dispensation to accept his candidature by bringing around the support of the parties like DMK and the Third Front.