A day ahead of the Opposition parties’ meeting convened by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to find a joint Opposition candidate for the post of President of India, NCP chief Sharad Pawar has refused to jump into the fray for the top constitutional post.
Meanwhile, the Congress and Left parties have decided to attend the meeting convened by the TMC chief at the national Capital on Wednesday. Mamata, who landed in Delhi on Tuesday, had a long meeting with Pawar at the Constitution Club and expressed hope to the media on bringing all Opposition parties under one umbrella to counter the NDA candidate.
Congress leaders said Mallikarjun Kharge, who is also the leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha as well as Jairam Ramesh and Randeep Surjewala are expected to attend the meeting convened by the West Bengal Chief Minister.
Before meeting Mamata, Pawar met CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D Raja, and NCP leaders Praful Patel and PC Chacko in Delhi and conveyed to them his decision to not contest the election.
“I have been informed that Pawar will not be the Opposition face for the presidential polls, other names are under consideration,” said Yechury, adding that Left parties will send their MPs to Mamata's meeting.
Earlier Left parties were miffed with Mamata's “unilateral” move to convene the meeting of the Opposition parties.
The CPI(M) will be represented in the meeting by the leader of the party in Rajya Sabha, Elamaram Kareem. Both the Left parties had expressed strong reservations over Mamata's “unilateral” decision to call such a meeting. Yechury also wrote a strongly worded letter to Mamata where he has reiterated his objections to the way the meeting has been convened.
In his letter, Yechury has said such meetings of Opposition parties have always followed a procedure of prior mutual consultations to enable the maximum participation of those wishing to join.
“However, in this instance, we received a unilateral communication informing the date, time, venue and agenda. Your letter mentions 'a fruitful confluence of opposition voices is the need of the hour'. This could have been better achieved if there had been mutual consultation and a proper time to enable party leaders to reschedule their prior commitments to attend such a meeting. Unfortunately, there were only three days between the receipt of your letter and the date of the meeting,” said Yechury.
He further said his party has consistently championed the need to strengthen the broadest mobilisation of all secular forces to safeguard the Indian Constitution and the secular democratic character of the Indian Republic.
“In line with this, as the issue is to discuss the forthcoming election of the President of India and given the fact that the President is the custodian of the Indian Constitution, the CPI(M) will be represented at the meeting by the leader of our group in the Rajya Sabha, Elamaram Kareem,” he said.
Several Opposition parties are likely to attend the meeting and take forward the discussion on the joint candidate. The election of the President of India will be held on July 18. With numbers on its side, the ruling NDA is somewhat short of half the votes in the Presidential College and its candidate can make it through easily with the support of some independent parties like the BJD, AIADMK and YSR-CP.