Veteran politician Margaret Alva, a former Governor and ex-union minister, was chosen by the Opposition as its common candidate for the elections to the post of vice president, on Sunday. She will be up against the National Democratic Alliance’s pick Jagdeep Dhankhar, whose name was announced for the polls last evening.
The 80-year-old Alva emerged as the unanimous choice of 17 opposition parties at a meeting of the anti-BJP bloc held at National Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar’s residence in the national capital.
Pawar, who announced Alva’s candidature after the nearly two-hour-long meeting, said she would file her nomination papers for the vice presidential election on Tuesday, July 19, which incidentally is the last date for filing nominations for the polls.
Accepting the opposition’s decision to nominate her, Alva wrote on Twitter: “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 has been a five-term Member of Parliament, a minister in the union government who worked under four prime ministers, and Governor of Rajasthan, Goa, Gujarat and Uttarakhand. Belonging to Karnataka, Alva had a stint as a lawyer before she turned to politics. Her entry into politics in 1969 was in a big measure because of the strong political moorings of her in-laws, the Alvas.
One of the most influential figures in the Congress for many years, Alva had a rather uneven relationship with the party leadership towards the fag end of her career as an active politician. In 2008, she was sacked from the Congress Working Committee and the party’s Central Election Committee after she had publicly criticised the party’s ticket distribution process and alleged that tickets were being sold.
She had later resigned as AICC General Secretary, and the three-page resignation was published in her memoirs ‘Courage and Commitment.’ The veteran leader attended the Congress’ Chintan Shivir held in Udaipur in May.
