NDA not confident of having numbers in VP polls, hence contacting Opposition: Raut

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that leaders of the NDA were reaching out to Opposition parties for the vice-presidential election because the ruling alliance is not confident about its majority.

Talking to reporters in Delhi, Raut also said that the INDIA grouping's numerical strength was not negligible.

Former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy is the joint candidate of the Opposition against the BJP-led NDA's C P Radhakrishnan.


"The NDA has majority (in Parliament).... yet, senior leaders from the ruling side contacted leaders of INDIA alliance and requested them to vote for Radhakrishnan," said Raut.

"If you have majority, why do you feel the need to contact INDIA bloc parties? This is because your majority is shaky. This is why you have to officially contact Opposition leaders," the Rajya Sabha MP added.

The ruling alliance should have contacted the Opposition before picking Maharashtra governor Radhakrishnan as its candidate, he said, indicating that he could not have been a consensus choice.

"When he was the governor of Jharkhand, then chief minister Hemant Soren was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate inside the Raj Bhavan. He (Radhakrishnan) did not follow any constitutional norms then," Raut said.

Radhakrishnan did not tell ED officers that what they were doing was unconstitutional, the Rajya Sabha MP said.

"Our fight is against the dictatorship of this kind and those who support it," he added.

The vice-presidential election is scheduled for September 9.