From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Former Union Minister and BJP rebel Yashwant Sinha (84) was on Tuesday unanimously selected as the common Opposition candidate for the upcoming presidential poll on July 18. His nomination papers will be filed in the Parliament House here on June 27 (Monday), two days ahead of the closure of the nominations.
He served in various positions as an IAS officer from 1060 to 1984 before plunging into politics. He was the finance minister of the Vajpayee and Chandra Shekhar governments and also an external affairs minister in the Vajpayee government.
Ahead of the BJP Parliament Board meeting here Wednesday evening to pick up its candidate, Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar said he would approach the BJP to support Sinha to get him elected unopposed instead of a consensus. He said he would also talk to AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal and YSRCP’s Chief Minister Jagan Reddy and BSP supremo Mayawati to back Sinha.
Sinha became a BJP rebel leader and campaigned against Prime Minister Modi for four years before quitting the BJP in 2018. He joined the Trinamul Congress (TMC) of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee only last year on March 13, 2021. His son Jayant (59) was a minister of state in the first Modi government and continues to be a BJP MP from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.
Sharad Pawar, who convened the Opposition leaders’ meeting in the Parliament Annexe here on Tuesday, told the meeting that he was in agreement with Mamata proposing the name of Yashwant Sinha as the joint opposition candidate, after Gopal Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and former J&K Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah suggested in the first meeting last Wednesday declined.
On Tuesday, Yashwant Sinha said it is the time to step aside from party politics and work for a larger national interest, work for greater opposition unity, stressing that he was grateful to Mamata for “honour and prestige bestowed on me in the TMC.”
Thirteen opposition parties, who attended the Parliament annexe meeting, agreed on Sinha’s name and set up a committee to campaign for him. The parties that attended the meeting include the Congress, NCP, TMC, CPI, CPI-M, Samajwadi Party, National Conference, AIMIM, RJD and AIUDF. The Congress was represented in the meeting by Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge, authorised by Sonia Gandhi, and AICC general secretary and chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh.
