Mumbai: According to a senior party leader, NCP chief Sharad Pawar is unwilling to contest the presidential election, while some opposition parties have supported his candidature for the Rashtrapati Bhavan race. The issue came to the fore after Pawar met Maharashtra NCP ministers here on Monday. An NCP minister who attended the meeting said Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh met Pawar on Sunday and reaffirmed his party’s support to the NCP chief for the election of India’s next President, to be held on July 18.
Last week, when senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge was in Mumbai in connection with the Rajya Sabha elections, he pitched for Pawar’s name as the joint opposition candidate for the presidential election.
Kharge said the Congress had also discussed Pawar’s candidature with the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC). “But, I don’t think he is interested in it (contesting elections). Saheb (Pawar) likes to meet people. He will not confine himself to Rashtrapati Bhavan,” the NCP minister said.
More importantly, Pawar is busy trying to bring the opposition together ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he said. Congress is reaching out to other opposition parties for a common candidate for the presidential election.
The BJP-led NDA stands comfortably to win the presidential election, with its vote share touching the 50 percentage mark of the total electorate. While both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha have 776 MPs, each with 700 votes, the states have 4,033 legislators with varying votes who will also elect President Ram Nath Kovind’s successor.
Though the final list of voters is yet to be notified, the NDA has 440 MPs in favor, while the opposition UPA has around 180 MPs, apart from the TMC’s 36 MPs who generally support the opposition candidate. The election for the President will be held on 18 July with voting by the members of both the houses of Parliament and the State Legislatures.