Incumbent Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Wednesday filed his nomination for a second term. The vice-president post will go to the polls on August 7.
The UPA coalition proposed Ansari's name for the second term as the Vice President. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and other leaders attended the nomination ceremony for Ansari.
"We are all very delighted that there is such a massive support for renomination of Hamid Ansari Saheb for the august office of the Vice-President," said the Prime Minister.
Initially, Ansari was projected as one of the Congress' Presidential nominees, before the party zeroed-in on former finance minister Pranab Mukerjee.
On the other hand, NDA and BJP have nominated former foreign minister and finance minister Jaswant Singh for Vice-President post.
UPA's nominee Ansari has already won half the battle with the dividends in both the Houses hinting at the possibilities of him getting a second term as the Vice-President. It is expected that this Vice-President election will be a walkover for Ansari.
Ansari enjoys Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samajwadi parties' supports for his candidature, besides UPA. However, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is yet to announce her decision on supporting Ansari.
Earlier, notwithstanding Congress' nominee, Mamata urged former West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi and former member of Lok Sabha Krishna Bose, to run for the vice-president post. But, both of her favourites let her down after they decided not to contest for the eminent post.
However, Mamata is very unlikely to back BJP's nominee Singh over Ansari.
Should Ansari win the Vice-President post, than he will become the second leader to get two successive terms at the Sansad Bhavan after S Radhakrishnan, the first vice-president of India.
