New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will hold its Parliamentary party executive meeting on Sunday morning to decide on the NDA candidate for the upcoming vice-presidential election. The meeting will be attended by all the senior party leaders including the BJP chief Amit Shah. A similar party meet was held earlier this month after which the party had announced Ram Nath Kovind as its Presidential candidate. The selected candidate will contest against Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the upcoming election. The winner of this year’s election will replace Hamid Ansari as the vice-president of the country who has served for two consecutive terms.

Meanwhile, the UPA candidates for presidential and vice presidential elections, opposition’s candidates Meira Kumar and Gopalkrishna Gandhi would hold an interactive session with MPs of 18 non-NDA parties today. This will be their first attempt to reach out to all the non-NDA parties and will be attended by most of the opposition parties. As per PTI sources, both Meira Kumar as well as Gopalkrishna Gandhi will make their presentations before the party leaders.

While the election for the post of president will be held on July 17, that of the vice president, who is the chairman of Rajya Sabha, will be held on August 5. Even though the numbers are in favour of BJP, it will be a battle of ideologies. As many as 17 non-NDA parties including the Congress, the Left parties, the TMC, BSP, SP, DMK, NCP, RJD, JMM JD-S and NC are supporting Kumar, while the JD(U) is supporting the NDA’s nominee Ram Nath Kovind. The JD(U) attended the meeting where Gandhi was selected as the joint opposition vice presidential candidate. However, it is not clear whether its MPs will also attend today’s meeting.