Thursday 25 / April / 2024
New Delhi: Former Indian minister M Venkaiah Naidu and former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi filed their nomination papers for the vice presidential election on Tuesday.
Flanked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani, Naidu filed his nomination papers and Gopalkrishna filed his nomination in the presence of senior Congress and other opposition leaders, including from the JD(U).
BJP president Amit Shah, senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi as well as leaders from BJP allies and those from other regional parties, including the AIADMK and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, accompanied Naidu as he filed his papers in the parliament complex.
The Shiv Sena was also present.
Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and several top leaders of the NDA were among those who proposed and seconded Naidu's candidature in the several sets of nomination papers filed in his favour.
The BJP's Parliamentary Board had on Monday picked Naidu as the NDA's vice presidential nominee.
The senior BJP leader resigned as Urban Development and Information and Broadcasting minister hours before he filed his nomination papers.
The vice presidential is scheduled to be held on August 5.
Gopalkrishna has been picked by 18 opposition parties to be their nominee for the post of vice president.
The Congress was represented by senior leaders such as president Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh as well as Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge as the former West Bengal governor filed his papers in the parliament complex.
Also present were other opposition leaders, including JD (U)'s Sharad Yadav, CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury, CPI's D Raja, NCP's Tariq Anwar and Praful Patel, NC's Farooq Abdullah and DMK's Kanimozhi.
