Unusual Delhi/Kolkata: The Opposition parties on Tuesday fielded primitive Union minister Yashwant Sinha as their joint candidate for the coming presidential elections. The Opposition leaders, who gathered at the Parliament Dwelling Annexe for the meeting convened by NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, unanimously agreed on Mr Sinha’s title. “Within the drawing shut presidential elections, we bear made up our minds to elect a total candidate and discontinuance the Narendra Modi government from doing any additional hurt. At a subsequent meeting held right this moment time we bear chosen Yashwant Sinha because the total candidate. We attract all political parties to vote for Yashwant Sinha,” talked about Jairam Ramesh, the AICC communications chief, finding out from a joint statement by the Opposition. This became the 2d meeting of the Opposition parties to order on a presidential candidate. Mr Sinha has headed the main finance and external affairs ministries in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government from 1999 to 2004.
Earlier on Tuesday, sooner than the joint Opposition meeting, Mr Sinha had resigned as Trinamul Congress vice-president and all other social gathering posts. Asserting his resignation from the TMC, Mr Sinha tweeted: “I am grateful to Mamata ji for the dignity and effect apart of residing she bestowed on me in the TMC. Now a time has near when for a bigger national neutral I need to step besides the social gathering to work for bigger Opposition cohesion. I am sure she approves of the step.”
In Kolkata, West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee congratulated her social gathering colleague for changing into the presidential candidate from the Opposition. Lauding the frail politician after senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge launched his title, Ms Banerjee tweeted: “I would are searching to congratulate Shri @YashwantSinha on changing into the consensus candidate, supported by all innovative Opposition parties, for the upcoming presidential election. A person of colossal honour and acumen, who would indubitably uphold the values that symbolize our colossal nation!”
Trinamul MP Abhishek Banerjee, the CM’s nephew, who attended the Opposition meeting representing his social gathering, also tweeted: “Heartiest congratulations to @YashwantSinha ji for being chosen because the joint Opposition candidate for the coming presidential elections. It is my firm perception that for all innovative parties who part the an identical imaginative and prescient for our nation, there can also no longer had been a bigger more than just a few!”
Earlier, primitive West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Celebration chief Sharad Pawar and primitive Jammu and Kashmir CM Farooq Abdullah had declined to creep for President.
The joint statement by the Opposition parties appealed to the BJP and its allies to support the candidature of Mr Sinha so that the nation can bear a “grand Rashtrapati elected unopposed”. A committee has been fashioned to lead Mr Yashwant Sinha’s campaign. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh talked about: “We regret that the Modi government made no serious effort to bear a consensus on a presidential candidate.”
The closing date for the filing of nominations is June 29. The election, if it is a necessity, would possibly be held on July 18 and the counting would possibly be on July 19.
…