Vice-president Mohammed Hamid Ansari is all set to get a second term after the Congress-led UPA on Saturday decided to renominate him.
Mr Ansari is the second vice-president to get a second consecutive term after Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrish-nan, who got elected to the post in 1952 and 1957.
A confident UPA decided to renominate Mr Ansari for the August 7 election after ensuring numbers. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi spoke to allies, supporting parties, the Left and smaller parties to seek their support for Mr Ansari in the last few days.
The Opposition, however, may not give the UPA a walkover and is likely to field a heavyweight against Mr Ansari.
According to UPA insiders, the JD-U, which is backing Mr Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential election, may remain with the NDA in the vice-president’s election, but they were tightlipped on whether the Trinamul Congress would remain with the UPA if it opposes Mr Mukherjee and Mr Ansari.
Earlier in the day, Dr Manmohan Singh spoke to BJP president Nitin Gadkari, BJP Parliamen-tary Party chief L.K. Advani and Leaders of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley to shore up support for Mr Ansari. He also spoke to JD-U president Sharad Yadav in this regard, who, nonetheless, remained noncommittal.
The PM also reached out to Trinamul Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee during the day to seek her party’s support for Mr Ansari. He had also discussed the issue with her during the week.
The Trinamul Congress is keeping its cards close to the chest on backing Mr Ansari. The SP and the BSP have supported the candidature of Mr Ansari.
Significantly, even the NCP stayed away from the UPA meeting. Only two days ago, the Prime Minister designated defence minister A.K. Antony as the “No. 2” in his Cabinet.
Mr Ansari was the only choice of the UPA approved at the meeting, also attended by railway minister Mukul Roy, the Trinamul Congress representative. He suggested the name of former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and former MP Krishna Bose. He later told reporters: “As the agenda of this meeting was not known to us, we proposed two names... But as Ansari’s name was proposed by the Congress, we said we will take a decision after consulting with our leadership.”