Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Congress has started its campaign to win the President’s post for its candidate. Sources tell CNN-IBN that the Prime Minister has proposed the names of three Congress leaders to its allies, the CPM and the CPI.
The names of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and veteran Congress leader Karan Singh were proposed at a weekend meeting the PM had with CPM and CPI leaders.
Mukherjee has a parliamentary career of nearly four decades, has handled several ministries and is respected for his experience. But other parties may seem him as too political, shrewd and too much of a Congressman.
Sushil Kumar Shinde was the first Dalit chief minister of Maharashtra and was the Governor of Andhra Pradesh. The Congress’ allies though may doubt whether he has the stature required for the President’s post and the Maratha lobby could go against him.
Karan Singh has handled ministries and was India’s ambassador to the US, he is an intellectual, belongs to the Kashmir royal family and is widely respected. But politically he is on the sidelines.
The President will be elected in July but competition for the post will pick up after May 11 when results of the Uttar Pradesh elections will be out. A UP legislator’s vote in the collegiate that elects the President has a value of 203 marks.
The Left Parties have said they would support a candidate who is secular and knows politics. "Ideally, it will be good to have a consensual secular candidate... who will have impeccable secular credentials," CPM Politburo leader Sitaram Yechury has said.
CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan, in an interview to CNN-IBN’s Karan Thapar, last week said his party would not support President A P J Kalam for a second term. Neither would he support Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who is regarded as a BJP man.
“I think the President of this country should be one, who first of all is secular…and who has democratic progressive views,” he said on Devil’s Advocate.
The Samajwadi Party has indicated it would support Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, a veteran Communist leader, but the Left parties have not yet publicly supported him.
The BJP, which won elections in Punjab and Uttarakhand this year, too has not indicated its choice but it is never going to support a Congress nominee for the President’s post.
President Kalam retires on July 24 and before that the Congress and its Left allies would have to make clear who they want as President.
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