Lucknow, 26 Aug (HS): On Tuesday, opposition vice presidential

candidate B Sudershan Reddy met with leaders of the Congress and the Samajwadi

Party, two important INDIA bloc constituents.

Reddy, a former Supreme Court judge was greeted at the airport this

morning by a group of Congress and SP supporters holding party flags. Reddy was welcomed by UP Congress President

Ajay Rai, state in-charge Avinash Pande, and senior leader Pramod Tiwari, among

others. Later today, Reddy is scheduled to hold a joint press conference with

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav. The ground is set for a straight

struggle between governing NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and joint opposition

candidate Reddy in the September 9 vice-presidential election, which is being

billed as a south vs south battle because both are from south India.

Radhakrishnan is a

BJP veteran from Tamil Nadu, while Reddy is a former Supreme Court judge from

Telangana. The vice-presidential election, prompted by Jagdeep Dhankhar's

untimely retirement, has been termed by the opposition as an ideological war,

despite the fact that the numbers are stacked in favour of the ruling National

Democratic Alliance. Reddy (79), who resigned from the Supreme Court in July

2011, is a senior judge recognized for numerous landmark decisions criticizing

the then-Union government's lack of diligence in investigating black money

cases. He had also deemed Salwa Judum, appointed by the Chhattisgarh government,

unlawful. Radhakrishnan (67) was a two-term Lok Sabha member from Coimbatore

under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and thereafter led the saffron party

in Tamil Nadu.

Hindusthan Samachar / Abhishek Awasthi