Who is Margaret Alva, the opposition candidate for vice-presidential polls?

Vice-presidential elections: Former Rajasthan governor Margaret Alva will contest the August 6 vice presidential elections against NDA candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Published on: Jul 17, 2022, 17:42:34 IST

By HT News Desk | Written by Aryan Prakash

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Former Rajasthan governor Margaret Alva was on Sunday announced as the joint opposition candidate for the vice presidential elections. The 80-year-old politician will be contesting the August 6 vice presidential elections against the National Democratic Alliance nominee Jagdeep Dhankhar, who is currently the governor of West Bengal.

Former Rajasthan Governor Margaret Alva is the opposition's vice presidential candidate.

“It is a privilege and an honour to be nominated as the candidate of the joint opposition for the post of Vice President of India. I accept this nomination with great humility and thank the leaders of the opposition for the faith they’ve put in me,” Alva tweeted.

Here are 5 things to know about the opposition vice-presidential candidate:

1. Born on April 14, 1942 in Magaluru, Alva graduated with a BA, LLb from Mt Carmel College and Government Law College in Bengaluru. She started her professional career as a lawyer. She married Niranjan Alva in 1964, with whom she has a daughter and three sons. Her husband died in 2018 due to illness.

2. Margaret Alva was elected to the Rajya Sabha four times and one term to the Lok Sabha, in 1999 when she won the elections from Uttara Kannada seat.

3. Margaret Alva was made a central minister at the age of 42, a rarity in those days. She went on to serve as minister under Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao.

4. In 2008, Alva stoked a major controversy after she alleged that tickets were sold for Karnataka elections held that year. Alva claimed that the norm of keeping out leaders' relatives applied strictly in Karnataka where her son was an aspirant, but it was violated in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

5. Margaret Alva also served as the governor of Goa, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Uttarakhand.

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Margaret Alva

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