Opposition fields Kanara’s Margaret Alva for VP

Karwar, July 17, 2022: Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Margaret Alva has been declared as the Opposition’s joint candidate for Vice President.

“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,” Margaret Alva tweeted.

Margaret has a close association with Coastal Karnataka as her family hails from Mangaluru and she had entered Lok Sabha from Uttara Kannada district.

Margaret Alva hails from a Roman Catholic family in Mangaluru. Politics was nothing new to the family as they were associated with Indian National Congress.

During the divide in Congress, she stayed with Indira Gandhi and was an active leader in Karnataka. She was also the joint secretary of AICC during the crucial period between 1975 and 1977. She also served as the KPCC general secretary between 1978 and 1980.

Alva was a Rajya Sabha member for four consecutive terms between 1974 and 1998. She had then served as the Union Minister of State. She contested the 1999 Lok Sabha election from the Kanara constituency (the present Uttara Kannada constituency). However, she lost the next election.

She was then made the AICC General secretary.

In 2009 she was appointed the governor of Uttarakhand. She also served Rajasthan.