Opposition leaders to meet on Tuesday, may finalise Presidential poll candidate

The meeting will be held at the Parliament Annexe and will be attended by senior leaders Sharad Pawar and Mallikarjun Kharge, among others

Opposition leaders will meet on Tuesday afternoon to finalise their candidate for the Presidential elections with Gopalkrishna Gandhi emerging as the only name in contention after National Conference patriarch Farooq Abdullah announced that he will not contest as several urged him to fight.

Sources said the meeting will be held at the Parliament Annexe at 2:30 pm and will be attended by senior leaders Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sitaram Yechury and D Raja among others. Seventeen parties had attended the first Opposition meeting on Presidential polls last Wednesday when they decided to field a common candidate.

After NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and later Abdullah declined to contest, sources said leaders may now look at Gandhi, who is Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson and former Governor, in the electoral battle, which the Opposition wants to make it an ideological battle of Gandhi versus Godse.

As Abdullah refused to be a candidate citing his reluctance to leave Kashmir politics, sources said the Opposition has left an unambiguous message that by actively considering his name that they are not going to play by the agenda of Islamophobia being set by the RSS-BJP.

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West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, who convened the first meeting on Presidential polls on Wednesday, will not be attending the meeting due to prior engagements, sources said. She had on Wednesday indicated that she may not come for the second meeting.

Chief Ministers M K Stalin and Uddhav Thackeray are also unlikely to attend but will send representatives of DMK and Shiv Sena respectively like the Trinamool. It is to be seen whether TRS and AAP attend it though it skipped the first deliberations. Leaders also do not have hopes about YSR Congress, Akali Dal and BJD joining the discussions.

A section in the Opposition believe that there is no point in waiting for the BJP to announce the ruling combine’s candidate and then strategise. “Whoever they choose will be a BJP person. Why should we fall into that? Speak about our ideology. Why should we fall into their narrative? We should set the narrative,” a senior leader said.

In 2017, Gandhi was the frontrunner as the Opposition candidate but as the NDA announced the name of Ram Nath Kovind, a Dalit, the Opposition recaliberated its strategy and fielded Meira Kumar, the daughter of towering Dalit leader Jagjivan Ram and a former Lok Sabha Speaker. Gandhi was later fielded as Vice Presidential candidate.