NEW DELHI, 29 March 2004 — The Congress party has announced that it would like to support former Union Minister Ram Jethmalani as a common candidate of opposition parties against Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Lucknow in the Lok Sabha poll.
“However, it is for Jethmalani to ensure the support of other non-NDA political parties,” senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee told reporters here.
To a question whether the Congress party would talk to other parties to ensure his victory, Mukherjee said that Jethmalani would be an independent candidate and said that the Congress could not ensure the support of other political parties.
Asked whether the Congress would make an appeal to other political parties to support his candidature, Mukherjee said: “We have already supported his candidature.”
Jethmalani, a senior Supreme Court lawyer was the Cabinet minister for law and justice in the Vajpayee-led NDA government at the center. Later he resigned from the ministry blaming Vajpayee of ignoring corruption around him.
Meanwhile, the BJP has asked a prominent VHP saint and former MP from Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh, Ram Vilas Vedanti, to take on Rahul Gandhi in Amethi and an ex-MLA Girish Narain Pande to oppose Congress President Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
Party sources revealed this after a meeting of the Central Election Committee here. Film Star Dharamendra who recently joined BJP has been nominated from Bikaner in Rajasthan.
The party has also decided to field Chaudhary Shah Mohammad Khan, the general secretary of its minority cell from Azamgarh. Candidates for all the remaining nine seats in the crucial state of UP have also been finalised. BJP has decided to leave the Salempur seat for its ally JD(U) and will contest the Ghosi seat held by JD(U) instead.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has asked the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to take “appropriate action” against ads that are “slanderous in nature” and violative of the advertisement code, and report back to it within two days.
Acting on a complaint by the main opposition Congress party against TV advertisements attacking party chief Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin, the Election Commission asked the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to take appropriate action under the cable TV regulation rules.
