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Jaswant Singh files nomination for vice presidential election | National Democratic Alliance's vice presidential candidate Jaswant Singh filed his nomination papers here on Friday afternoon. 74-year-old Singh,
who was unanimously selected by the NDA for contesting the post of vice president
early on Monday against UPA nominee Mohammad Hamid Ansari, files his nomination papers
in the presence of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Lal Krishna Advani, Sushma
Swaraj Arun Jaitley, Gopinath Munde and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) chief Sharad Yadav.
Three sets of papers, one each by L.K. Advani, Sumitra Mahajan and Yashwant Sinha,
supporting Singh's candidature were submitted to Lok Sabha Secretary T.K. Vishwanathan,
who is the Returning Officer for the vice presidential
election. Jaswant Singh, a Member of Parliament from the Darjeeling parliamentary
constituency, served as finance minister in the short-lived Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Government, which lasted just from May 16, 1996, to June 1, 1996. After Vajpayee
became the Prime Minister again two years later, he became Minister for External
Affairs of India, from December 5, 1998 until July 1, 2002. Responsible for foreign
policy, he dealt with high tension between India and Pakistan . In July 2002,
he became Finance Minister again, switching posts with Yashwant Sinha. He served
as Finance Minister until the defeat of the Vajpayee government in May 2004 and
was instrumental in defining and pushing through the market-friendly reforms of
the government. Known for his moderate political views, he is a self-described
liberal democrat even though the Bharatiya Janata Party is often described as
a right-wing nationalist organization. Jaswant Singh was conferred the Outstanding
Parliamentarian Award for the year 2001. On August 19, 2009, he was expelled from
BJP following criticism over his remarks in his book 'Jinnah - India , Partition,
Independence ', which praised the founder of Pakistan.
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