Yashwant Sinha is Opposition's pick for Presidential elections

Earlier in the day, Yashwant Sinha quit the Trinamool Congress ahead of Opposition's meet to decide on Presidential candidate

Opposition on Tuesday formally announced former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha as its candidate for the July 18 Presidential election and sought support of “all parties” after castigating the Narendra Modi government for not taking “serious” efforts to find a consensus on a single name for the top post.

The announcement came after a meeting of Opposition parties at the Parliament House Annexe here chaired by NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and attended by around 15 parties, hours after Sinha quit Trinamool Congress as demanded by the Congress, CPI(M) and CPI to project a “non-party” candidate for the electoral battle.

Sinha crawled back into contention on Monday after Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi declined the Opposition offer, the third to do so after Pawar and National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah. DH had on June 13 reported that Trinamool had Sinha in mind for the fight, though it backed Pawar and Abdullah in a meeting two days later.

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The consensus over Sinha,a former BJP leader who joined Trinamool Congress last year, came after two rounds of hectic consultation on Monday evening and Tuesday morning by Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, Jairam Ramesh and Praful Patel. In the electoral college, BJP and allies are comfortably placed with numbers close to the majority.

While Pawar told the leaders that there is support for Sinha from AAP, TRS, Samajwadi Party and RJD among others, Congress and Left parties insisted that he could be considered only if he quits the party. In between, sources said, AAP suggested that they could consider former Congress leader Kapil Sibal but that did not gain any traction.

As the second round of consultations began on Tuesday morning, Sinha made it easier by tweeting, “I am grateful to Mamataji for the honour and prestige she bestowed on me in the TMC. Now a time has come when for a larger national cause I must step aside from the party to work for greater opposition unity. I am sure she approves of the step.”

The contours of Sinha’s campaign was discussed at the morning meeting and later taken to the formal deliberations where all parties agreed to his candidature and a joint statement. While Ramesh will coordinate a committee to steer his campaign, Sinha will file the nominations on June 27 in the presence of top Opposition leaders.

“Ideally, a consensus candidate of the government and the Opposition should be elected for the highest office of the Republic. However, the initiative for this should have been taken by the government. We regret the fact that the Modi government made no serious efforts in this direction,” said a joint statement read about by Ramesh. It called on “all parties” to support Sinha so that the “nation can have a worthy Rashtrapati elected unopposed”.

Special care was taken by the Opposition parties not to annoy partners by projecting Sinha as a Trinamool nominee, as Pawar had used his stature and negotiation skills to help the Opposition take a united stand. “He is a consensus candidate,” Pawar intervened when the media sought Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abishek Banerjee’s views on a party nominee getting the nod.

While parties like TRS and AAP did not attend the meeting, Pawar said he has already spoken to Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, K Chandrasekhar Rao, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejaswi Yadav as well as Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi and Abdullah. Parties like AIDUF, AIMIM, VCK, which did not attend the June 15 meeting called by Mamata Banerjee, sent representatives for the meeting.

Queries on Sinha’s BJP past were raised to leaders. However, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury as well as Trinamool Congress’ Banerjee among others dismissed it, saying one should see his track record in the last four years after he quit the BJP.

“He has been consistently opposing the anti-people BJP policies. He took a stand on the Rafale scam. As the joint statement says, he is eminently qualified to uphold the secular and democratic character of the Indian Republic and its Constitutional values,” Yechury said.

Asked whether he has spoken to BJD, YSR Congress and BSP, Pawar said he was yet to talk to Naveen Patnaik, YS Jaganmohan Reddy and Mayawati but would be doing it soon.

“This is premature. The numbers will be there. That is why we are in the fight,” Kharge shot back when asked about whether the Opposition has enough numbers to win.