Congress, TMC leaders meet Kejriwal as AAP assures support for opposition’s VP candidate

NEW DELHI: In a show of solidarity, Congress and TMC leaders accompanied the opposition’s Vice Presidential candidate former Supreme Court judge B Sudarshan Reddy to the residence of AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal who assured his party’s full support.Though AAP has disengaged from the bloc it joins hands with INDIA bloc members on issues where it deems fit and Sanjay Singh from the party was present when Reddy filed his nomination in the presence of top opposition leaders earlier in the day.AAP has three MPs in Lok Sabha and out of its 10 MP posts in Rajya Sabha currently it has nine MPs including the estranged Swati Maliwal. One seat fell vacant after MP Sanjeev Arora won the Ludhiana West assembly bypoll in June.Congress’s Pramod Tiwari and Syed Naseer Hussain and TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee were present at the meeting at Kejriwal’s residence. "Justice Reddy's judicial career is very impressive. He gave many unbiased judgments in favour of the country. I request everyone to vote for him, keeping party affiliations aside," Kejriwal said. Noting that Justice Reddy is from Andhra Pradesh where NDA ally TDP is in power, Kejriwal said “we expect parties from AP and Telangana to rise above partisan politics and vote for Telugu pride and national interest.

”With 781 members in the electoral college and 391 required for a majority, the ruling alliance has a clear numerical advantage.