Presidential polls: For Cong-Left, it is either Pranab or Somnath

While uncertainty lingers over the UPA candidate for the Presidential elections, the Left parties are sure about one thing: The nominee will be from West Bengal.

With the CPI(M) supporting Union minister Pranab Mukherjee's candidature and the Congress unwilling to let go of its key trouble-shooter, the latter could have little option but to support the Left candidate -- possibly Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, said sources.

"If the Congress and the UPA put up Pranab Mukherjee, we will support him," CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters a day after the four Left parties discussed the strategy for the elections.

But with the Congress unwilling to spare Mukherjee, it would have no choice but to support the Left's candidate.

"We are not sure about any name yet. All we know is that he will be a Bengali," a senior CPI(M) leader told Business Standard.

Left leaders said Chatterjee had good prospects of getting support from many NDA constituents. Two JD(U) MPs are learnt to have met Chatterjee recently and committed their party's support to him.

Although JD(U) leaders Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav have maintained silence so far, the two MPs assured the Speaker that their party would rather abstain than support Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the likely NDA nominee. A section of the SAD and the Biju Janata Dal is learnt to have given a similar assurance to Chatterjee.

According to Left sources, the Samajwadi Party, which is amenable to supporting Shekhawat despite SP General Secretary Amar Singh pronouncements to the contrary, will also extend its support to a non-Congress UPA candidate (read Chatterjee).

Singh had declared at a press conference earlier that the SP would support a CPI(M) candidate but not that of the Congress. Sources said that many smaller, regional parties would like a non-Congress, non-BJP candidate as a safeguard against the misuse of Article 356.