V-P poll: Jaswant Singh confident of AIADMK,BJD support

He was replying to a question if AIADMK and BJD,which had backed the candidature of P A Sangma in the Presidential poll,will extend their support to him in the Vice Presidential poll.

Asked about their continued silence on the issue,Singh said,“I have no difficulty with (their) silence.”

On if it would be embarrassing if no one other than NDA parties backed his candidature,the BJP leader said,“Why don’t you wait until the 7th of August…don’t jump to conclusions.”

On if he was apprehensive following charges of Sangma about use of allurements and threats by UPA during the Presidential poll,he said,“I am not. I don’t lend myself to such apprehensions. I am adult enough to know the reality of India’s political life.

“But it is much better for me not to totter my thinking with that kind of detail,” he said.

Singh parried further queries,saying,“You are trying to unpeel an onion.”

He dismissed a suggestion that it does not make sense for Patnaik,after breaking up with BJP on the Kandhamal issue and winning on the basis of his own party’s strength,would reverse the message of 2009 by supporting him.

He also rejected an argument that Jayalalithaa was unlikely to support the candidature of a “losing” candidate again.

Singh said though there was no quid pro quo,he was confident that both the leaders will extend their support to his candidature just as BJP had extended its support to Sangma.

“It is two separate assessments of two separate and different elections,” he said.

Singh dismissed suggestions that some leaders within BJP were not very happy about his candidature and that he was overlooked by his party in the Presidential election.

“It’s not overlooking…circumstances were not opportune. It’s circumstances…Most often in life it is not choice that determines the course of action,it is circumstances that decide upon what path we have to go down with…,” he said when asked why he was not nominated as a Presidential candidate.

“Over the years without any doubt whatesoever,without any question whatsoever,there has been a dimunition in the stature as also the prestige of these offices,” he said.

Attacking UPA,Singh alleged that the decision making process in the ruling alliance was “dictatorial”,unlike in NDA and BJP in which,he claimed,it was far more consultative with larger number of people being consulted.

Expressing confidence of winning the Vice Presidential poll,he said,“There was a substantial error in the figures” that suggested a walkover for UPA nominee Hamid Ansari.

“The error arises from what is enjoined upon the political parties and the members that there shall not be a whip and that the anti-defection law does not apply. If the parties cannot issue whips,then prima facie parties must not announce whom they are going to vote for,” he said.

Singh said if elected,he would favour opening up the Parliamentary Standing Committee meetings to the media and persuade MPs in that regard.

“There is need to find a balance…We need to be open for the rest of the country,” he said.

Singh also said he would try and lend more respect to the post of Chairman of Rajya Sabha if elected,maintaining that one should “make a distinction between a recognition,understanding and a sense of politics of the country and how to persuade the House to move in accordance with (norms).

“The Vice President is not a monitor,the Vice President is also not a superviser…He must always persuade…by example,by knowledge,by learning…,” he said.

He also said Parliament is not a forum for campaigning and its first function is to legislate.