The opposition United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has named former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Margaret Alva as its candidate for the upcoming Vice Presidential election. The decision was announced on Sunday, July 17, after several opposition parties held a meeting at National Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s residence to discuss the nomination. Pawar later addressed the media and said that Alva will likely file her nomination on Tuesday, July 19, which is the last date for the filing.
Alva’s nomination comes a day after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) announced West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as its VP candidate. Born in Mangaluru and educated in Bengaluru, Alva served as Governor multiple times, to Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. In the Rajya Sabha, the 80-year-old has served as a Union Minister for State for various departments including Parliamentary Affairs, Women and Child Development, and Youth and Sports. She was also briefly the Union Minister for Science and Technology.
“It is a privilege and an honour to be nominated as the candidate of the joint opposition for the post of Vice President of India. I accept this nomination with great humility and thank the leaders of the opposition for the faith they’ve put in me,” Alva wrote on Twitter.
The Election Commission had earlier announced that the Vice Presidential election will take place on August 6, as the term of current VP Venkaiah Naidu is ending. While the nomination papers will be scrutinised on July 20, a day after the filing deadline, the last date to withdraw nominations is July 22. The nominations for the post of Vice President began on July 5.
Meanwhile, the Presidential election is set to take place on Monday, July 18. Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote to elect the 15th President of India, with NDA candidate Draupadi Murmu having an edge over the opposition’s Yashwant Sinha. The polling will take place in Parliament House and state Legislative Assemblies, for which ballot boxes have already reached their destinations. The counting of votes will take place at Parliament House on July 21 and the next President will take oath on July 25.
With the support of regional parties such as BJD, YSRCP, BSP, AIADMK, TDP, JD(S), Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena and JMM, Murmu’s vote share is likely to reach nearly two-thirds and she is set to become the first Adivasi woman to occupy the top constitutional post. The NDA nominee now has over 6.67 lakh votes after the support of various regional parties, out of a total of 10,86,431 votes.