President poll: Left to wait for UPA's choice

New Delhi: The Left Front met in the national capital on Wednesday to decide on their choice of a Presidential candidate. But they have decided to wait for the UPA government to announce their candidate first before taking a decision on who to support.

Presidential hopeful PA Sangma met CPM Politburo leader Prakash Karat on Tuesday to gather support but the CPI says supporting Sangma at this stage is tantamount to supporting the BJP's candidate.

The meeting was attended by CPI(M)'s Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and S Ramachandran Pillai, CPI's AB Bardhan, Sudhakar Reddy and D Raja, RSP's T J Chandrachoodan and Abani Roy and Forward Bloc's Debabrata Biswas and G Devarajan.

The Left Front met in the national capital to decide on their choice of a Presidential candidate

"We have not discussed any name. UPA should come up with a name," Biswas told reporters.

When asked about Mamata Banerjee proposing three names including that of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Bardhan said many people are proposing many names. "Let's see," he said.

"She doesn't have one name. She cannot choose one name. So she is proposing three names," he added.

Queried whether parties like Samajwadi Party, RJD and BSP bailing out government will help the UPA in the Presidential elections, he said these parties were supporting the government on issues earlier also.

Bardhan also disapproved of the tendency of people to discuss about tribal candidate or other single qualification.

"We have to consider many things. If someone is saying he is tribal, so we should support him, then what about our ideology, our political thinking?" he said.

He also said the Left parties gave a patient hearing to Sangma but did not give any assurance to him. "We will discuss the matter. We will soon decide. Let UPA come up with a name which has wider acceptability," he said.

(With additional information from PTI)

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