Buoyed by the huge victory achieved by the UPA-Left candidate Pratibha Patil in the presidential election, the Congress on Saturday appealed to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the UNPA to support the ruling coalition’s vice presidential candidate Hamid Ansari, calling his victory a foregone conclusion, which the BJP rejected forthright.

Ms Patil’s chief election manager and Parliamentary Affairs Minister P R Dasmunsi said immediately after her election was formally declared, “instead of a contest, all parties can join hands and create an example and take the credit by jointly electing Mr Ansari as the next vice president of the country.”

He added, “in case of a contest, we will win hands down. But it will be nice if others don’t contest. The mathematics is clear”.

However, undeterred by the defeat of NDA-backed “independent” candidate B S Shekhawat in the presidential election, BJP  rejected the Congress appeal outright, with party leader Sushma Swaraj saying, “we cannot leave the field open or give the post on a platter”.

She asserted, “election is the strength of democracy. We have to contest", claiming that Mr Shekhawat had not fared very badly as “normally in a direct contest, the victory margin has ranged between eight lakhs to nine lakhs in some past elections to the highest office.

This time, we have lost by a much lesser margin”.

She added: “NDA polled 24,000 more votes in the presidential election despite Shiv Sena siding with Ms Patil and Trinamool Congress and JD(S) abstaining from voting”.