Congress leader Hariprasad is opposition nominee for RS Deputy Chairman
New Delhi, Aug 8 : Congress MP B.K. Hariprasad was on Wednesday declared as the opposition candidate for the post of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman, election for which will be held on Thursday.
Hariprasad, who is into his third term in the Rajya Sabha, hails from Karnataka and has been a Congress General Secretary.
Talking to reporters, Congress leader Anand Sharma said that five sets of nomination papers -- five proposers and five seconders -- were filed by the combined opposition.
He said opposition leaders were present at the time of filing the nominations.
Sharma, who was accompanied by Hariprasad and NCP MP Vandana Chavan, accused the government and the BJP of "using every tactic, using the influence of their authority and power just to swing the election".
"Hariprasadji is a senior parliamentarian. It is a joint decision of parties which have been meeting and deliberating for the last few days," he said.
The parties that have been deliberating to field a joint opposition candidate include Congress, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, ADMK, CPI, CPI-M and Telugu Desam Party.
TDP, which broke away from the BJP earlier this year, signed Hariprasad's nomination papers. Sharma said the opposition had the numbers and there will be a contest.
He said Hariprasad is a "formidable candidate" and a "better candidate" than Harivansh of the ruling National Democratic Alliance. Harivansh belongs to Janata Dal (United).
"We have a formidable candidate not the NDA. The BJP, if it had the majority, should have fielded its own candidate...they lacked majority and that's why they are desperate to reach out to others outside the fold of NDA," Sharma said.
"Secondly, a formidable candidate is a parliamentarian who can conduct the proceedings, who understands the functioning of the House. When it comes to the two candidates, we have a better candidate," he added.
Sharma said that by fielding a joint candidate the opposition has made a statement that "it is not happy with the present state of affairs and the prevailing environment in the country".
Asked if there was a chaos in the Opposition and Congress had been forced to put up its candidate after other parties declined, Sharma said "this statement is incorrect".
"NDA as such did not have a majority and does not have it now. They have gone well beyond the fold of NDA to get votes. It is true that the Congress does not have numbers on its own. Hariprasadji is not a Congress' candidate alone. He is the candidate of the joint opposition," he said.
Asked to elaborate on his accusation that the government is using its authority to swing the election, Sharma said "there is no post that the ruling party does not want to capture".
"That is why the ruling party did not announce the election earlier. When a few days of the session were left, they suddenly made the announcement. It is obvious they acted to a strategy," he said.
Sharma said no effort was made by the government, the Prime Minister or the Parliamentary Affairs Minister to talk to the opposition for a consensus. "They only informed us (about their candidate)," he said.
The Congress decided to put up a candidate after the NCP on Tuesday decided against putting fielding its candidate for the August 9 election.
Vandana Chavan's name was being "actively considered" by opposition parties but NCP decided against fielding her, after apparently sensing that she would not get the support of Biju Janata Dal and Shiv Sena.
A Congress leader had said on Tuesday that the party was willing to contest the election from the beginning but had also offered to back any other Opposition candidate.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had spoken to TRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, seeking his party's support for the party candidate. He apparently also spoke to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Officials said that all the motions for the election of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman will be moved on Thursday and taken for vote in succession. If a motion gets carried, others will not be taken up for vote.
Though the Opposition seemed to have an edge in the election initially, the NDA now appears to be carrying the momentum with likely support of AIADMK, TRS and also the BJD.
The parties which would support an opposition nominee include the Congress (50), TMC (14), SP (13), TDP (6), DMK (4), CPI-M (5), CPI (2), NCP (4), AAP (3), BSP (4), RJD (5), PDP (2), JD-S (1), Nominated (1), Kerala Congress-Mani (1) and IUML (1).
The post of Deputy Chairman fell vacant after P.J. Kurien retired in July.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
