Dynamite News
NDA picks Venkaiah Naidu as the Vice-Presidential candidate
Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu will be NDA's vice-presidential candidate.
New Delhi: Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu will be NDA's vice-presidential candidate. The decision was taken at a meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening.
In the past, Naidu has made no bones about it. "I neither want to become Rashtrapati (president), nor do I want to become uprashtrapati (vice president). I am happy being Usha's pati (wife Usha's husband)," he said in May.
The BJP and its advisers have a clear set of requirements and Naidu checks most boxes - which include the ability to run smoothly the Rajya Sabha, where the Vice President is chairman and where the government is currently in a minority, and belief in the core values of the BJP and its ideological mentor the RSS.
Opposition parties last week named as their vice presidential candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a former governor who was also briefly considered by them for the post of President.
Naidu will file his nomination paper on Tuesday at 11 am in the Parliament.