From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Maratha leader and Nationalist Congress Party(NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar remained adamant again on Wednesday, declining to be the Opposition’s Presidential candidate as requested at a meeting of the opposition parties by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee at the Constitution Club Annexe here.
This was his official stand at the opposition parties’ meeting, urging all not to make him a butt of joke by repeatedly floating his name despite his refusual not once but so many times. Why pestering him despite his refusal, he asked, feeling hurt by comments that his “No” means “Yes.”
In an earlier meeting with the NCP leaders at his residence, he told them that he does not want to fight “a losing battle” and the most important task before him today is to ensure the ruling alliance of Maharashtra led by the Shiv Sena completes its full 5-year term.
At the meeting of the 17 parties, he bluntly asked the leaders to look for some other candidate, asserting that “even at the age of 81, I still have an active political innings to play.”
Mamata Banerjee, who had convened the meeting, proposed Pawar’s name despite he refusing to her during a meeting with him at his residence here Tuesday evening. Sources said she has suggested two other options — Former Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi (77), the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and National Conference supremo and former J&K chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah (84). Dr Gandhi was the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance nominee for the Vice-President’s post in 2017 that he lost to NDA candidate M Venkaiah Naidu with 244 votes against his 514.
The meeting set June 21 as the deadline for deciding the presidential candidate. It also decided to persuade Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who skipped Wedneday’s meeting.
The presidential election is to take place on July 18 and the results are to be declared on July 21 for the new president to take the oath on July 25, a day after the present incumbent Ram Nath Kovind retires. Nominations for the election have already opened and June 29 is the last date for filing of nominations and withdrawals allowed till July 2.
Wednesday’s meeting was attended by 17 parties, namely Congress, TMC, CPI, CPI(M), CPIML, RSP, Shiv Sena, NCP, RJD, SP, National Conference, PDP, JD(S), DMK, RLD, IUML and JMM. Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge attended the meeting as authorised by party president Sonia Gandhi, along with Jairam Ramesh and AICC general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala, but he did not propose any name.
Others turning up are Mamata of TMC, former PM H D Deve Gowda, Sharad Pawar, Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, DMK’s T R Baalu, Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, and RJD’s Manoj Jha.
