Shekhawat files nominations,Returning Officer receives 5 sets

New Delhi, Jun 25 (UNI) Setting the stage for a showdown with the UPA in the Presidential poll, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat today filed his nomination papers as an Independent, backed by the Opposition NDA to take on Mrs Pratibha Patil, the ruling coalition's candidate.

Five sets of nominations were received here for the July 19 Presidential poll, taking the total number to 21 so far.

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.

He was accompanied by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani and senior BJP leaders, including party president Rajnath Singh, and seven Chief Ministers of BJP-NDA ruled states.

According to information received from the office of the Returning Officer, two sets of nominations were filed by Mr Shekhawat.

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.

About the NDA's confidence level, Mr Vajpayee said ''Abhi to hum ladne 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.'' Meanwhile, the Congress said accused Mr Shekhawat of being the first constitutional functionary who had "indulged, in a most brazen manner, in politicking" while occupying the second highest constitutional post.

''He, as Vice President, attended a BJP-cum-NDA meeting and has been participating in designing his campaign stategy through means which are a common knowledge,'' AICC Spokesman Devendra Dwivedi said while pointing out that there was no such precedent in Independent India where five former Vice-Presidents have become Presidents.

He said the decision of Mr Shekhawat to contest the election had raised ''another very important question which has grave implications for our constitutional values.'' In this context, he cited the powers of the Vice President as Rajya Sabha Chairman to decide any question relating to disqualification on the ground of defection and his decision is final.

''The same Presiding Officer of Rajya Sabha has decided to contest presidential election on the sole premise and solitary ground that he would be able to engineer defections on a mass scale from the UPA, Left, BSP combine,'' he said.

Communist Party of India (CPI) General Secretary A B Bardhan appealed to the recently formed United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) to support a secular candidate in the Presidential election. He said the UNPA, a combination of eight regional political parties should either field its own candidate or support a secular candidate in the Presidential poll.

The UNPA should also clarify whether it would support BJP-backed Presidential candidate Bhairon Singh Shekawat, who had an RSS background, Mr Bardhan asked.

He said there was every possibility to field the Left candidate for the post of Vice-President in the contest. ''The Left has not yet decided on the Vice-Presidential candidate. We would decide on the candidate, only after evolving a consensus with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) partners''.

The last date for making nominations is June 30 and scrutiny will take place on July 2. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is July 4. While the poll is to be held on July 19, counting of votes is slated for July 21.

As many as 776 Members of Parliament, including 543 from the Lok Sabha, and 4,120 legislators from various states, including Delhi and Puducherry, constitute the electoral college whose total vote value comes to 10,98,882 votes.

The ruling UPA alliance has got over 5.13 lakh votes while the strength of the opposition NDA is over 3.54 lakh votes and the combination of eight regional parties constituting the third front accounts for 1.05 lakh votes.

UNI