The Opposition fields Yashwant Sinha as President of India, TRS backs decision though TRS abstained from the June 15 meeting of Opposition.
Yashwant Sinha, a former Union Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, was today named the joint opposition candidate for presidential polls. The BJP is yet to announce its pick for the July polls. Opposition leaders assembled at the Parliament annexe for the meeting summoned by NCP chief Sharad Pawar and unanimously agreed on Yashwant Sinha’s name.
Earlier, President K Chandrasekhar Rao KCR abstained from the June 15 meeting of Opposition parties stating that the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee invited the Congress to the meeting. The TRS chief did not send a representative to the meeting convened by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday for the same reason.
Now TRS says, “Yes, we have decided to support the candidature of Sinha,” according to a TRS member of parliament who is KCR’s close confidant, told Hindustan Times.
Though KCR was not part of the Opposition meetings to decide on the presidential candidate, he has decided that the TRS will support Sinha, who had been a bitter critic of the Narendra Modi government for the last few years.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress’s communication chief, reading from a joint statement by the Opposition said, “In the forthcoming Presidential elections, we have decided to elect a common candidate and stop the Modi government from doing further damage. At a subsequent meeting held today, we have chosen Yashwant Sinha as a common candidate. We appeal to all political parties to vote for Yashwant Sinha.”
The joint statement appealed to the BJP and its allies to support the candidature of Mr. Sinha so that the nation can have a “worthy Rashtrapati elected unopposed”.
A committee has been formed to command Yashwant Sinha’s campaign. “We regret the Modi government made no serious effort to have consensus on a presidential candidate,” said Mr. Ramesh.
Reading out the joint statement, he added that the unity of opposition parties forged for the presidential poll will be further consolidated in the months ahead
Earlier in the day, Mr. Sinha, a Trinamool leader, dropped a major indication about his candidature when he said he “must step aside” from the party to work for greater opposition unity.
“I am grateful to Mamataji for the honor and prestige she bestowed on me in the TMC. Now a time has come when for a larger national cause I must step aside from the party to work for greater opposition unity. I am sure she approves of the step,” he tweeted.
Opposition Says Yashwant Sinha has High Integrity
In 2018, when Yashwant Sinha’s son Jayant garlanded eight men convicted of lynching a Muslim man, Yashwant Sinha called his son ‘nalayak’ for garlanding them and said he
strongly disapproved of his son Jayant’s meeting with the eight convicted for the lynching of the man in Jharkhand.
He has finer values than his son and is said to be a very balanced person with high integrity.
In 2017, he said, “Urging people to “stand up” to save the great tradition of parliamentary democracy” and “that “darr” (fear) and democracy don’t go together.” In 2018, he left the BJP.
BJP Gearing for Presidential Pick
The BJP will also hold its parliamentary board meeting today where it’s likely to finalize its pick for the presidential polls.
Final Dates June 29th
The last date for filing nominations is June 29. The polls, if necessary, will be held on July 18, and the counting is on July.