Ministers to meet Sonia Gandhi on presidential poll

New Delhi: The race for Raisini Hill kicked off on Wednesday with the ruling BJP reaching out to Opposition parties to discuss the possibility of putting up a consensus candidate for the top post. Opposition parties also held a meeting at the Parliament House to discuss presidential polls Wednesday afternoon. The BJD and AAP were not part of the Opposition meet.

The BJP team, which includes Union ministers, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley, will meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday to work out the possibilities of coming up with a consensus candidate for the crucial presidential poll. Mr Naidu is also expected to meet the CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury separately on the same day.

Mr Jaitley would be speaking with Bihar chief minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar while Union home minister, Mr Rajnath Singh, will hold talks with Trinamul Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Baneree separately, sources said.

BJP president Amit Shah had formed the three-member committee on Monday to explore the possibility of a consensus presidential candidate.

Early Wednesday morning Prime Minister Narendra Modi held parlyes with Mr Naidu and Mr Singh on the forthcoming presidential elections. Mr Modi apparently is in favour of  a consensus candidate.

After the meeting, Mr Naidu called up both, Mrs Gandhi and Mr Yechury. He also called other Opposition leaders, which include BSP and CPI. Mr Naidu had earlier spoken with Anbumani Ramadoss of the PMK, N. Rangaswamy of the All India NR Congress and Praful Patel of the NCP over the issue.

As the ruling BJP tries to evolve a consensus, cracks seemed to have surfaced in the Opposition camp. During the Opposition meet in which nine parties participated, the Congress and CPI(M) pulled in different directions. While the Congress was in favour of waiting for the meeting with the BJP’s team, CPI(M) wanted the name of a joint Opposition candidate to be announced immediately.

Regional compulsions also surfaced with the NCP leader, Praful Patel, indicating that if the BJP proposed the name of a Maratha candidate, it would be difficult for his outfit to oppose. Speculation is rife that the BJP could also propose the name of Uttar Pradesh governor, Ram Naik.

The Congress and the Trinamul Congress agreed to support BJP if it fielded external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, as the presidential candidate.

The Opposition parties, which met Wednesday, included the Congress, CPI(M), NCP, Trinamul Congress, JD(U), BSP, SP, DMK and RJD.

“No names were discussed in today’s meeting and we all will meet again. I am sure by that time the ruling party would have proposed a name,” Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, said after the meeting.

The probable names doing the round in the saffron camp for the top post include Jharkhand governor Draupadi Murmu, Keralal governor P. Sathasivam, Ram Naik and Mrs Sushma Swaraj. The names being discussed in the Opposition camp include that of former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, former Speaker Meira Kumar and JD(U) leader, Sharad Yadav.

The Election Commission, meanwhile, notified the presidential polls and the process of filing nominations for the July 17 presidential poll. The nomination process will continue till June 28 and polls, if needed, would be held on July 17.