A file image of I.N.D.I.A. bloc leaders meeting.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Top I.N.D.I.A leaders on Thursday night decided to field an “eminent” candidate in the Vice Presidential election in a bid “not to give a walkover” to the BJP-led NDA at a time the Constitution is “under assault”, sources said.
The decision was taken at a close-door meeting after a dinner hosted by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, at his official residence.
Sources said the leaders were of the view that they should keep an eye on the BJP strategy and field an “eminent” candidate so that “no walkover” is given to the Modi regime, though the numbers are stacked against them.
A view also emerged in the meeting that they should look for an “eminent personality” from outside the political field who can take the fight for the “Idea of India” forward. They felt that the BJP may now go for an in-house candidate.
Besides Rahul, those who attended the closed-door deliberations included Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and K C Venugopal (Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (SP), Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena-UBT), Kanimozhi (DMK), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Derek O’Brien (Trinamool Congress) and M A Baby (CPI-M).
Not all leaders who were part of the dinner meeting attended the deliberations on the Vice Presidential elections, for which the Election Commission has issued the notification. The last date for filing nominations is August 21.
At the dinner meeting, which preceded the closed-door meeting and was attended by around 50 leaders from 25 parties, Rahul made a presentation on ‘vote chori’ (vote stealing), which is about the findings of the Congress’s analysis of an Assembly segment in Karnataka.
RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav briefed the leaders about the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and claimed a “fraud” was happening in the state. He invited all coalition leaders to come to Bihar for the conclusion of a protest programme the I.N.D.I.A bloc is organising in the state.
The protests against the SIR, that start on August 10 and also see a ‘padayatra’ by Rahul, Tejashwi and leaders from allies like CPI(ML)L, will culminate on September 1. Venugopal informed the meeting about a march by MPs to the EC on August 11.
Sources said National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah urged the leaders in the meeting to raise the issue of restoring the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir. He also spoke about the delay in filling four vacancies in the Rajya Sabha from the state as well as the EC not conducting by-polls to two Assembly seats.
Those who attended the meeting included three Congress Chief Ministers – Siddaramaiah, Sukhwinder Singh Sukh and A. Revanth Reddy – and ally leaders T R Baalu, Kamal Haasan, Mehbooba Mufti, D Raja, Dipankar Bhattacharya and G Deverajan, among others.