With countdown having begun for election to the covetted post of country's Vice President, the Opposition's candidate for the vice presidential election, B Sudershan Reddy today unhesitatingly chose to say that his opponent is an RSS man.
In an interview with a news agency, Sudershan Reddy said it was not a contest between two individuals but two ideologies, asserting that while his opponent is a quintessential RSS man, he is "far, far away" from it. "I am essentially a liberal constitutional democrat. This is the area, or rather the arena, for the contest where the fight goes on," he said.
Honoured to be fielded as the joint candidate of a rainbow of opposition parties, he said his candidature was a unanimous choice that signalled diversity and represented more than 63-64 per cent of the country's population in terms of voting strength.He also said that it was the Congress that initially proposed his name for the vice president's poll, but later the INDIA bloc parties and other opposition parties extended their support to his candidature, which was an honour for him.
Starting his campaign on Friday with a meeting with AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, Reddy said he would be travelling to Chennai on Sunday and then to other parties of the country to meet all the MPs of different parties to seek their vote in his support for the September 9 vice presidential election.To a question as to his name as a first former judge to contest election for the post he said, the first move in this regard came from the INDIA alliance. But since you are asking the party's name - which party first proposed or contacted you in this regard - it was the Congress party.
Responding to a query on his background, he said "My journey began in 1971 when I was enrolled as a member of the Bar Council. Ever since, I have been associated with the functioning of the Constitution, its values, and its conventions. Right from the day I started practice -- and it continues till today -- I consider my journey to be the same; ultimately culminating in, if given an opportunity, to protect and defend the Constitution".
He further said, "hitherto, I was upholding the Constitution and that is the oath administered to a judge. And there are only three offices in this country that prescribe both mandates, that they have to protect and defend the Constitution – the highest office of the Republic of India, the president of India; vice president of India; and the governors at the state level. So this journey is nothing new to me"
To a question whether top constitutional posts should be filled by consensus to reflect national unity, he responded " I wish there could have been a consensus. But you know the polity as it stands is a fractured one. In such circumstances, perhaps it was inevitable, leading to this contest". As for the current state of democracy and the government-Opposition ties, Sudershan Reddy said earlier, we used to talk about a deficit economy. There is a deficit in democracy. I do not say that India is no more a democratic country. I don't subscribe to that. We still continue to be a constitutional democracy, but under strain.
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