Former Governor Margaret Alva To Be Joint Opposition's Vice Presidential Candidate

Pawar made the announcement?after Opposition leaders on Sunday met at his residence in Delhi to discuss their joint vice presidential candidate.

Pawar said that 17 parties unanimously support Alva and efforts are on to secure further support.

"Seventeen parties are on board for this unanimous decision. Our collective thinking is Alva will file VP nomination on Tuesday. We are trying to contact Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal. Last time they supported our joint presidential candidate," said Pawar.

Alva is a five-term Member of Parliament and a former Union minister.?She said it's a privilege and an honour to have this nomination.

"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. Jai Hind," said Alva in a tweet.

Alva's name's announcement?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 on Sunday 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.

Shiv Sena has this time supported Alva's candidature.?

"We are all together in this election," saod Sena's Sanjay Raut.?

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)