A senior Trinamool Congress leader on Monday said that non-BJP parties are considering fielding former Union minister Yashwant Sinha as a possible joint candidate for the upcoming presidential election. He said the name of the former BJP leader, who joined the Trinamool Congress last year, has been proposed as the presidential candidate by some opposition parties and three to four have supported it.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC Supremo Mamata Banerjee There have been phone calls suggesting the name of the 85-year-old veteran leader and she is also now projecting Sinha as the candidate of the United Opposition, she said. Earlier, names of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi were proposed, but all of them refused to stand for the top post.
The NDA which has a vote share of more than 48 per cent in the Electoral College, which votes for a president, is likely to be able to garner support from a few smaller parties, including the BJD, and end up garnering more than 52 per cent of the vote. However, the stature of the opposition candidate may ensure a close fight and give the ruling camp some uncomfortable moments.
Analysts said Sinha, a former minister and close confidant of late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who still enjoys much prestige in political circles, was a strategic move to underline the differences in the working style of the Vajpayee-led BJP government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sinha, a former IAS who joined politics in 1984 to join the Janata Dal, was the finance minister in the short-lived Chandrashekhar government in 1990–91. He later joined the BJP to become the Minister of Finance and later the Minister of External Affairs in the Vajpayee government, which ruled between 1989-2004. Yashwant Sinha is now TMC leader. Therefore, we do not want any illusion that the offer has gone from us. So far three to four parties have agreed on his name. Now let others decide, said the senior TMC leader.
Sinha’s name will be discussed at a meeting of major opposition parties convened by NCP chief Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on Tuesday to reach a consensus on fielding a joint candidate against the BJP-led NDA. TMC national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee will represent the party in the meeting.
Mamata Banerjee had called such a meeting of 22 non-BJP parties in the national capital last week. Seventeen of them participated in it. Banerjee proposed Pawar, Abdullah and Gandhi as potential joint opposition candidates in the presidential election, but all of them eventually turned down requests to stand in the polls. After this Sinha’s name came up.
The process of electing the new president had started from June 15. The last date for filing nominations is June 29. If necessary, elections will be held on July 18 and counting of votes on July 21.
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