Shekhawat files nominations for Presidential poll

New Delhi, June 25 (UNI) Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, flanked by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani, today filed his nomination papers as an NDA-backed Independent for the July 19 presidential election.

A confident-looking Mr Shekhawat handed over two sets of papers to Lok Sabha Secretary-General PDT Achary, who is the Returning Officer for the poll, at 1130 hrs. The papers carried 266 signatures, 128 of MPs and 138 of MLAs.

Mr Shekhawat, 84, accompanied by senior BJP leaders including BJP President Rajnath Singh and seven Chief Ministers of BJP-NDA ruled states, entered Mr Achary's room, where Mr Vajpayee was already present, at around 1112 hrs and spent about 30 minutes there.

Emerging from the Returning Officer's room, a smiling Mr Shekhawat did not respond to any of the queries by newspersons, while a huge number of BJP supporters, mostly from Rajasthan, raised slogans like ''Rajasthan ka ek hi Sher, Bhairon Singh (Bhairon Singh is the only lion of Rajasthan)'', and Jo Bole so Nihal.

When a question was posed to Mr Vajpayee on the NDA's confidence level, the former Prime Minister quipped, ''Abhi to hum larne ki baat kar rahe hai (We are talking about the fight only).'' Former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, who hails from Rajasthan, and Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh were present and were also the signatories to the papers.

Besides seven NDA chief ministers -- Mr Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Ms Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan), Mr Naveen Patnaik (Orissa), Maj Gen (Retd) B C Khanduri (Uttarakhand), Mr Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh), Mr Parkash Singh Badal (Punjab), Mr Shivraj Singh Chauhan (Madhya Pradesh) -- top BJP and NDA leaders were there. They included Mr Jaswant Singh, Ms Sushma Swaraj, Dr M M Joshi, Mr S S Ahluwalia, Mr George Fernandes, Mr Sharad Yadav and Braj Kishore Tripathi.

Later talking to newspersons, Ms Swaraj conceded that no one from the Shiv Sena had signed the papers but added that it had not been expected also as the party had yet to take a decision on its Presidential nominee.

''We are hopeful that by this evening they would announce their support for Mr Shekhawat,'' she said.

Mr Dinesh Trivedi of the Trinamool Congress, whose name figured among the supporters in the list, however, could not sign the papers as his flight got delayed, Ms Swaraj said, adding one more set of papers could be filed which would carry the signature of Mr Trivedi among others.

She said there were a total of 4896 voters, which would be equal to about 10 lakh votes, and not 11 lakh votes as being given out by some channels and newspapers. ''We hope there will be a direct fight between Mr Shekhawat and UPA-Left nominee Pratibha Patil and we are confident that Mr Shekhawat will be the winner.'' Asked if the NDA was asking for conscience votes to effect cross voting, she replied in the negative, saying the term conscience vote had got a bad name as the late Indira Gandhi had employed it to defeat Congress' official candidate Sanjeeva Reddy. ''Instead, we will ask the electorate to be careful while casting their votes as this election is linked to the nation's destiny''.

Born on October 23, 1923, Mr Shekhawat has distinguished himself as a noted statesman, beginning his political carreer in 1923 and holding several positions including chief ministership of Rajasthan thrice before resigning from BJP to become the country's Vice President in 2002.

UNI