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By K.V. Prasad and Anita Joshua
Mr. Shekhawat, accompanied by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, and a host of leaders, filed the papers with the returning officer, G.C. Malhotra, Secretary General of the Lok Sabha. One set containing 21 proposers and 22 seconders was filed this afternoon. The proposers list was headed by Mr. Vajpayee, and contained the signatures of NDA allies, the TDP, the AIADMK and BSP MPs. Mr. Shekhawat later said he hoped to secure votes from across the political spectrum. On the other hand, while most of the Opposition parties have rallied round Mr. Shinde's candidature, the Samajwadi Party is yet to take a formal decision. The Congress spokesman, Jaipal Reddy, exuded confidence about the SP's support. The SP leader, Akhilesh Singh, said its Parliamentary party would meet next week to take a stand. By fielding Mr. Shinde, a Dalit leader from Maharashtra, the Opposition hopes his candidature would slice the votes across parties, especially of the SCs/STs parliamentary forum, of which he is an office-bearer. On its part, the BJP tried to pre-empt the move by ensuring that almost all the 22 seconders for Mr. Shekhawat were SCs/STs MPs. Soon after the Congress announcement, the four Left parties, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Nationalist Congress Party pledged their support for Mr. Shinde. According to Mr. Reddy, the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, took the initiative and spoke to the leaders of the Left parties, including the general secretaries of the CPI(M) and the CPI, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and A. B. Bardhan, and the SP general secretary, Amar Singh, besides others. The contest, he said, was aimed at defeating the "communalisation of Indian polity with the tacit consent of the so-called secular members of the NDA''. The "brazen communalisation'' of polity and marginalisation of allies by the BJP, he said, was evident from the fact that the offices of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were in the hands of "hardcore products of the RSS''. "And now, another man from the same school is being foisted on Indian polity through the office of Vice-President.'' This, in the Congress view, was a betrayal of the mandate that the NDA secured in 1999, and those members of the ruling alliance who still claim to be secular owed an explanation to the nation. In a separate statement, the Left parties said Mr. Shekhawat was a prominent BJP leader with close links to the RSS. "He went on record in the wake of the worst communal carnage in Gujarat to state on April 23: If the State Government continues with its policy of appeasing a particular community, Rajasthan would face a situation similar to that of Gujarat''. Mr. Surjeet, in a letter to the Prime Minister, objected to the manner in which the Government went about deciding on Mr. Shekhawat's candidature while maintaining that it had "consulted" the Opposition. Charging the Government with deliberately undermining the process of consultations and consensus, the Left and the Opposition had decided to field a candidate.
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