'Sonia Gandhi is 'on the job' to finalise presidential candidate'

Union Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal on Saturday said that Congress President Sonia Gandhi was on the job to finalise the presidential candidate even as the party continued its efforts to build a consensus on the issue.   

On who would be the Congress' candidate for the top post, Jaiswal told media persons, that though Gandhi was zeroing in on the prospective candidate, the party was clear that it would first try to strike a consensus.

"It would be heartening if there is a consensus on the top constitutional post," the senior party leader said on the sidelines of a function at the National Steel Corporation Limited in Kanpur, his parliamentary constituency.

Pointing out that there were still two months left for the presidential elections, he said the names so far doing the rounds, including that of Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, were the imagination of the media.

He also denied that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee was exerting pressure on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for a special economic package to the state and that she had linked her support for the Congress's presidential nominee with it.

"I have no knowledge of this. I have only read this in certain sections of the media," he said.