Shekhawat to file nominations today

The Vice-President will fight as an independent candidate backed by the NDA

NEW DELHI: With Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat all set to file his nomination papers on Monday for the Presidential poll as an independent backed by the NDA, the UPA has begun marshalling all its resources to install its nominee Pratibha Patil in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Though the UPA-Left-BSP combine has a clear majority in the electoral college with over 5.4 lakh votes in its kitty (roughly two lakh more than Shekhawat), both the NDA and the UPA are trying to engineer cross voting in rival camps. The third front christened as United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) is in disarray with leaders like Jayalalithaa, Om Prakash Chautala and AGP's Brindawan Goswami favouring  Shekhwat while others such as Chandrababu Naidu, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh opposed to backing a BJP leader as the move would cost them their Muslim constituency. Some of them talked about setting up a third candidate to maintain equi-distance between the Congress and the BJP.

The UNPA leaders who failed to convince APJ Abdul Kalam to run for a second term left for their respective state capitals after failing to draw up an alternative plan.

The UNPA has more than one lakh votes and even if all of them go to Shekhawat he wont be able to win unless there is massive crossing in the UPA camp. Shekhawat has friends in most parties.

Even as it has a clear edge over its rival, the UPA is also trying to engineer cross voting in the NDA. Sources said Congress strategists are targeting "secular" parties such as the Janata Dal (United), Janata Dal (Secular) to vote for Patil.

Efforts are on to woo Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who too  is reportedly opposed to Shekhawat as also Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray who may favour a Marathi manoo.

The UPA is also making efforts to get some of the UNPA parties such as the Samajwadi Party to abstain from voting so as to minimize chances of cross voting by third front parties. Sources said the SP leaders might strike a deal with UPA top brass to bail out Mulayam Singh Yadav from some corruption cases which CBI is investigating in lieu of its indirect support to Patil.

Mohan Prakash, Congress leader and campaign committee member of Patil, said the UPA is confident of winning the election. "There is no question of second preference votes going to the rival candidate. That question arises only if our nominee failing to get 50 per cent and one vote, we are winning with a huge margin."

The BJP,on the other hand, will try to keep up its campaign against the UPA nominee so as to create a huge negative image of her.

After the allegations that Patil defaulted in repayment of bank loan to the tune of Rs.17.5 crores as chairperson of Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd, Jalgaon and that she shielded her brother against whom a murder charge has been leveled, there is even the talk of  someone filing a PIL against her candidature and the NDA petitioning the Election Commission seeking to disqualify her.

Phoo-phooing the move, Devender Diwedi, former Solicitor General and ex-CWC member, who is also in the campaign committee, said "once electoral process is set in motion there cannot be any judicial interference. Only the EC has the jurisdiction, but EC itself is monitoring the polls."

He said the UPA is "supremely confident" of its nominee winning the election.

Patil is set to launch her campaign from Chennai from next week. She will visit all state capitals seeking votes from the MLAs.

Senior Congress leader Jayanti Natarajan has been appointed spokesperson for the Presidential candidate with parliamentary affairs minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi having overall supervision.

The Congress has also set up a four-member campaign committee comprising AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi, culture minister Renuka Chowdhry, Devender Dwivedi and Mohan Prakash.