OPPN’S MOVE TO PICK BS REDDY MAKES VP POLL A SOUTH VS SOUTH CONTEST
Former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy is the joint candidate of the Opposition for the vice-presidential polls, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge announced on Tuesday, as he called the September 9 election for the country’s second-highest office an “ideological battle”.
Reddy, the first Lokayukta of Goa, reached the national capital this evening and was accorded a warm welcome by opposition MPs at the airport.
He later met with various opposition leaders.
Reddy, who is also on the Board of Trustees of the International Arbitration and Mediation Centre in Hyderabad, will file his nomination on August 21.
The joint opposition would hold a meeting in the central hall of Samvidhan Sadan (old Parliament building) on Wednesday afternoon.
“All opposition parties have decided to have a common candidate; the decision has been taken unanimously. I am happy that all opposition parties have agreed on one name. It is a big achievement for democracy,” Kharge said.
“Whenever democracy and the Constitution are under attack, Opposition parties unite to fight against it. So we have decided to field a good candidate in this election,” he said.
Reading out a joint statement of the Opposition parties, Kharge, who is the Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, said Reddy is one of India’s most “distinguished and progressive jurists”. “This Vice-Presidential contest is an ideological battle. The Opposition parties have nominated Shri B. Sudershan Reddy garu as their joint candidate…,” Kharge said flanked by various opposition leaders including NCP-SP leader Sharad Pawa, CPI-M’s M A Baby, TMC’s Derek O’Brien, DMK’s Tiruchi Siva and SP’s Dharmendra Yadav said.
He stressed that the vice presidential contest is “an ideological battle” and that’s why all the opposition parties are contesting unitedly.
O’Brien later said AAP, which had recently left the INDIA bloc, is also supporting Reddy for the Vice-Presidential polls.
The move to pick Reddy as a joint candidate for the Opposition made the vice presidential election a South versus South contest.
The ruling NDA has picked Maharashtra Governor C P Radhakrishnan as its vice-presidential candidate. Born in July 1946, Reddy was appointed as a permanent judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on May 2, 1995 and the chief justice of Gauhati High Court on December 5, 2005. He became a Supreme Court judge on January 12, 2007, and retired on July 8, 2011.