Opposition Parties Meet At Sharad Pawar's Residence To Discuss Joint Vice Presidential Candidate

The Opposition meeting comes a day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) vice presidential candidate. Numbers are strongly stacked in Dhankhar's favour.

The Opposition meeting was attended by all major opposition parties including the Congress, Shiv Sena, Trinamool Congress, Left Front constituents, RJD, SP, and others.

Among the attendees were Congress' Mallikarjun Kharge and Jairam Ramesh, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, CPI's D Raja and Binoy Viswam, Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut, DMK's T R Baalu and Tiruchi Siva, SP's Ram Gopal Yadav, MDMK's Vaiko and TRS' K Keshava Rao.

The RJD's A D Singh, IMUL's E T Mohammed Basheer and Kerala Congress (M)'s Jose K. Mani were also present.

Earlier, the Opposition had announced Yashwant Sinha as their presidential candidate ahead of NDA's Droupadi Murmu, leading to several non-BJP parties including even Congress allies Shiv Sena and the JMM veering towards Murmu. This time the like-minded parties wanted to wait for the announcement of the NDA candidate.

NDA's candidate Dhankhar, a Jat leader from Rajasthan, could influence the electoral calculations in Rajasthan and Haryana, which go to elections in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

The last date for filing of nominations for the vice presidential election is July 19.

(With PTI inputs)