New Delhi, 19 August

Former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy, the joint opposition nominee, will take on NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan in the 9 September vice-presidential election, a contest billed as an ideological battle by the INDIA bloc, as numbers favour the ruling BJP-led alliance.

The vice-presidential election has emerged as a "south versus south" contest as the opposition has fielded Reddy, who hails from Telangana, against Radhakrishnan, described as a "Pachai Tamizh" (true-blue Tamil) by well wishers.

Maharashtra Governor Radhakrishnan, 67, is a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader who served as a two-term member of the Lok Sabha from Coimbatore during the tenure of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and later, went on to lead the party in Tamil Nadu.

Reddy , 79, who retired from the apex court in July 2011, is a veteran jurist known for several landmark judgments criticising the then Union government for showing slackness in probing black-money cases. He had also declared Salwa Judum, appointed by the Chhattisgarh government, unconstitutional.

As a Supreme Court judge, Reddy had ordered the constitution of a special investigation team to take all steps for bringing back unaccounted monies unlawfully kept in bank accounts abroad.

Bringing back black money deposited in foreign banks was a key electoral plank of the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, which saw Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister.

The NDA is projecting Radhakrishnan as an untainted leader with rich political and administrative experience for the vice-president's office and maintaining that this would also prove useful as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

Radhakrishnan was the chairman of the All India Coir Board from 2016 to 2020, a period when coir exports witnessed a significant jump.

BJP president JP Nadda described Radhakrishnan as a "statesman" who commands respect across party lines. He belongs to the influential Gounder caste, an Other Backward Classes (OBC) community in Tamil Nadu.

The Congress-led INDIA bloc is projecting Reddy as a consistent and courageous champion of social, economic and political justice.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge described the vice-presidential election as an ideological battle.

Reddy has had a long and eminent legal career, including as a judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court and a judge of the Supreme Court.

"He is a pro-poor man and in many of his judgments ... he favoured the poor people and also protected the Constitution and fundamental rights," said Kharge, flanked by NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar, CPI(M)'s MA Baby, TMC's Derek O'Brien, DMK's Tiruchi Siva and Samjwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav.