Prez poll: Oppn meets, Centre dials key leaders
No candidate picked at meet organised by Mamata after Pawar declines; BJP leaders reach across the aisle to build consensus
Saubhadra Chatterji, Smriti Kak Ramachandran and Deeksha Bhardwaj
NEW DELHI: The race to elect the next President heated up on Wednesday as several Opposition parties gathered at a meeting in Delhi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reached out to top political leaders in an effort to build a consensus for the July 18 election.
Seventeen Opposition parties convened at a meeting called by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and said they will meet again next week to select a consensus candidate after Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar declined to contest the poll. Six Opposition parties skipped the event, where Banerjee also proposed the names of former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah, and former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi as possible candidates.
“I sincerely appreciate the leaders of opposition parties for suggesting my name as a candidate… However, I have humbly declined the proposal of my candidature.i am happy to continue my service for the well-being of the common man,” Pawar tweeted.
On the other side of the aisle, defence minister Rajnath Singh and BJP chief JP Nadda dialled the leaders of at least 12 parties to build a consensus. This included ally Nitish Kumar as well as Banerjee, Pawar, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, among others. The BJP is yet to name its candidate.
The absence of six opposition parties bolsters the prospects of NDA, which is set to win the poll, while the Opposition has a slim chance of victory in the election, for which the results will be announced on July 21.
The Opposition’s first attempt to nominate a common candidate suffered a blow with the Aam Aadmi Party, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, the BJD, the YSR Congress, the Akali Dal and the Sikkim Democratic Front skipping the meeting at Delhi’s