Bengal governor not in race for V-P job

While West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi today ruled himself out of the race for the vice-presidentship, the CPI(M) said the incumbent need not be a political person.

To this, the Congress said it had not thought about if the vice-president should be from the Left, the Right or the Centre.

A meeting of the UPA-Left Coordination Committee would decide before July 19, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi said.

In clearest indication yet that the parties had started thinking about what the right candidate should be like, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said the vice-president should have an "exemplary record in some field and should have the widest acceptance."

"We have said that the candidate need not have a political background. According to us, he or she should be someone who has made a contribution," Karat said. "That is the role of the vice-president. He does not make rules or policies. He can belong to any party," he added.

Karat said this stand was different from what the party took for the presidential polls. "What we said with regard to the presidential candidate does not hold here," he said.

Apparently on his own, Gopal Gandhi, a blue-eyed boy of the Left Front until he criticised its policies in Nandigram and Singur and made remarks about the condition of tea garden labourers in Darjeeling, said contesting for the the vice-presidentship was not in his "zone of consideration."

Dasmunshi said the UPA-Left Coordination Committee was yet to discuss the matter.