CONGRESSLED OPPN PICKS GOPALKRISHNA GANDHI AS VP NOMINEE
NEW DELHI: Eighteen Opposition parties picked Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi as their nominee for the vice-presidential election, Congress president Sonia Gandhi announced on Tuesday.
Gandhi, the former governor of West Bengal during the Left regime, has also been a distinguished bureaucrat and a diplomat.
His nomination indicates that the Opposition is not giving up their ideological battle against the BJP even for the vice presidential poll. The VP’s chair is important for the BJP-ruled NDA as several bills are stuck in the Rajya Sabha where the VP dons the chairman’s position.
At the Opposition meeting, leaders like CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Trinamool Congress leader Derek o’Brien and others proposed Gandhi’s name and it was immediately accepted.
But the leaders spent at least 10 anxious minutes before declaring his name. “When we called Gandhi and asked if we can declare his name. He said give me 15 minutes.”
“We waited till he called us back to give his consent,” o’Brien told Hindustan Times.
Applauding the unity and conviction of the parties, Gandhi told HT, “I accept with all seriousness it calls for. I applaud the unity and conviction with which 18 opposition parties have asked me to be their candidate.”
The former West bengal governor’s name was considered for the presidential candidate last month but finally former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar was picked.
Sources said opposition parties are hopeful that Gandhi’s name might be able to get votes from parties like JD(U) and BJD although they aligned with the NDA for the Presidential election.
Gandhi has goodwill among leaders cutting across parties and his non-political candidature may come handy to win some extra votes in the election, which is heavily tilted in favour of the ruling dispensation.
While the Opposition had waited for the NDA to announce a candidate before it announced its own nominee for the Presidential election, it decided to go ahead in naming a vice-presidential candidate so as not to give the NDA an upper hand.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee did not attend Tuesday’s meeting even as their party leaders were present.