Sushma Swaraj ruled out the possibility of her party supporting either Ansari or Mukherjee because they were Congress candidates.
Talk about who will be president turned into a swirl on Tuesday when Janata Dal (U) leader and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) convenor Sharad Yadav clarified that BJP leader Sushma Swaraj’s view that the BJP favoured former president APJ Abdul Kalam was that of the BJP and not of the NDA. Yadav said there has as yet been no consultation nor deliberation on the presidential election among the NDA partners. The BJP concurred with Yadav.
The first move was made by Congress’ AK Antony when he met DMK supremo M Karunanidhi in Chennai on Sunday. Karunanidhi ruled out the name of Kalam, and Antony had apparently mooted the name of vice-president Hamid Ansari and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee for the president’s office.
On Monday, Swaraj ruled out the possibility of her party supporting either Ansari or Mukherjee because they were Congress candidates.
BJP spokespersons Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Shahnawaz Husain clarified in response to Yadav that the JD (U) leader was right, and what Swaraj said was indeed the stance of the BJP and not that of the NDA. They said there was no contradiction or ambiguity between what Yadav and Swaraj had to say.
CPI(M)’s Brinda Karat told DNA that there was no basis to the story that the Left parties would support Congress candidate Hamid Ansari or Pranab Mukherjee. Karat said all that she raised was an objection to what Swaraj had said about Ansari lacking the stature to be a consensus candidate. “It was wrong for the leader of the opposition to comment on the stature of a person holding a constitutional office,” she said.
Husain defended Swaraj saying what she said was in the context of coming up with a consensual candidate of someone from an artistic field and of such high stature that there would not be any debate, and such a person would necessarily be apolitical.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party’s Kamal Farooqi, former member of the Muslim Personal Law Board, mooted the name of chief election commissioner SY Qurashi, and he argued that there is need to push for a Muslim name. But SP member of Lok Sabha Shailendra Kumar told DNA that his party had not taken any stand and there was not even any discussion in the party forum about that.
Another name that came up for vice-president was that of Punjab chief minister and Akali Dal leader Prakash Singh Badal. Again the buzz as yet has no basis though BJP feels that it could be a good name to reckon with. But the BJP has made it clear that it would do no deal with Congress in getting in its vice-presidential candidate while supporting in turn the Congress’ presidential nominee.
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