Political parties today scrambled to take positions on choosing the President of the country, even as the Election Commission announced the polls, if needed, would be held on 19 July.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in Delhi late evening after speaking to Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the morning. Sources close to Banerjee said some internal discussions had taken place in the party and the names of two more candidates besides Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee — former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator Shivraj Patil — might come up in discussions between Gandhi and Banerjee tomorrow. According to a senior Trinamool MP, all the three names were proposed by Sonia Gandhi.
However, given the high-octane campaign that Mukherjee’s supporters have launched, it seems unlikely that Sonia Gandhi will want to humiliate the Finance Minister by raising his expectations and dashing them.
While leaving for Kolkata airport from Writers’ Building, Banerjee said she would also meet Mulayam Singh Yadav in Delhi. Yadav is said to be strongly backing Mukherjee.
“I am going to Delhi as Sonia Gandhi has called me. We will discuss the Presidential election. I have many acquaintances like Mulayam Singh Yadav in Delhi with whom I will talk,” Banerjee said.
Asked whether TMC was ready to support Mukherjee as a Presidential candidate, she said: “Let Congress decide on its candidate first.”
The West Bengal chief minister has so far been non-committal on Pranab Mukherjee’s name.
The Samajwadi Party said Banerjee’s trying to hook up with it to form a kind of bloc was not an accurate picture of the reality. Sources explained Business Standard that SP had no axe to grind in this election. They said SP was going to stay equidistant from both Mamata Banerjee and the Congress. “We are an ally of the UPA. We will consider the suggestion the UPA puts forth and discuss it on merit internally” said a party source.
A meeting of UPA constituents may be likely in the next few days, possibly before the PM leaves for the G20 Meeting on 16 June.
Meanwhile, it was clear the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was backing P Sangma as its choice for the President. However, in an interesting twist, party leader Jaswant Singh met Mulayam Singh Yadav, while yoga guru Ramdev was at a meeting with him. The discussion was about the post of the vice-president. Singh, who is a Lok Sabha MP, is said to have the backing of BJP veteran L K Advani to contest the election for the vice-president’s post, although his party is ambivalent about the idea.
The vice-president is the chairman of the Upper House as is elected by the two Houses of Parliament. Since the Congress has an unchallenged majority in a combined Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, it is hard to see how Singh could hope to win the election. What’s more, he stands to lose his present membership of the Lower House, too. This would make it a highly perilous enterprise for him.
United Progressive Alliance allies went into a huddle after the announcement. Most allies said they were waiting for the Congress to make its position known.
Mukherjee continues to be the front runner for the job, although his name is yet to be officially announced (and may not be endorsed by the Congress till the prime minister’s return from the G-20 summit on 23 June). However, the race has certainly entered its final lap today.
