NEW DELHI: Former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy is the joint candidate of the Opposition for the vice-presidential polls, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge announced on Tuesday, as he called the September 9 election for the country’s second-highest office an “ideological battle”.
Reddy, the first Lokayukta of Goa, reached the national capital this evening and was accorded a warm welcome by opposition MPs at the airport.
He later met with various opposition leaders.
Reddy, who is also on the Board of Trustees of the International Arbitration and Mediation Centre in Hyderabad, will file his nomination on August 21.
The joint opposition would hold a meeting in the central hall of Samvidhan Sadan (old Parliament building) on Wednesday afternoon.
“All opposition parties have decided to have a common candidate; the decision has been taken unanimously. I am happy that all opposition parties have agreed on one name. It is a big achievement for democracy,” Kharge said.
“Whenever democracy and the Constitution are under attack, opposition parties unite to fight against it. So we have decided to field a good candidate in this election,” the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha said.
Reading out a joint statement of the Opposition, Kharge said Reddy is one of India’s most “distinguished and progressive jurists”.
“He has had a long and eminent legal career, including as Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court and Judge of the Supreme Court. He has been a consistent and courageous champion of social, economic and political justice,” he said.
“This vice-presidential contest is an ideological battle. The opposition parties have nominated Shri B Sudershan Reddy garu as their joint candidate since he reflects fully the values that shaped our country’s freedom movement so profoundly and the values on which our country’s Constitution and democracy have been anchored.
“All these values are under assault and therefore, our collective and determined resolve to fight this election,” Kharge said, reading out the statement.
“He is a pro-poor man, and in many of his judgments… he favoured the poor people and also protected the Constitution and fundamental rights,” the Congress chief, flanked by various opposition leaders including NCP-SP leader Sharad Pawa, CPI-M’s M A Baby, TMC’s Derek O’Brien, DMK’s Tiruchi Siva and SP’s Dharmendra Yadav, said.
He stressed that the vice-presidential contest is “an ideological battle” and that’s why all the opposition parties are contesting unitedly.
O’Brien later said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which had recently left the INDIA bloc, is also supporting Reddy for the vice-presidential polls.
The move to pick Reddy as a joint candidate of the Opposition made the vice-presidential election a South versus South contest. The Opposition also wanted to pick a non-political face as their nominee for the second-highest constitutional post in the country.
The ruling NDA has picked Maharashtra Governor C P Radhakrishnan, a seasoned BJP leader from Tamil Nadu with an RSS background, as its vice-presidential candidate.
If the NDA chose Radhakrishnan as its candidate from Tamil Nadu to ensure the DMK would not oppose him, the Opposition has countered with its own strategy by fielding an eminent Telugu face as its candidate, making it difficult for parties in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — the TDP, the YSRCP, and the BRS — to not back Reddy.
The YSRCP, however, has already declared its support for the NDA nominee.
Reddy began his professional journey as an advocate focused on civil and constitutional matters in the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
Born in Akula Mylaram village in the Rangareddy district of present-day Telangana on July 8, 1946, he completed his early education in Hyderabad and earned his law degree from Osmania University in 1971.
Currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Arbitration and Mediation Centre, Justice Reddy headed the Independent Expert Working Group constituted by the Congress government in Telangana to study the caste survey conducted in the state.
Reddy was appointed as a permanent judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on May 2, 1995 and the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court on December 5, 2005.
He became a Supreme Court judge on January 12, 2007, and retired on July 8, 2011.
He was enrolled as an advocate in Hyderabad with the Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh on December 27, 1971.
Source: Press Trust of India
