Yashwant Sinha is the opposition’s choice for President of India
After lots of uncertainties, Union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet and, till earlier today, Trinamool Congress vice-president Yashwant Sinha has been chosen as the consensus candidate by the opposition camp for the presidential election, to be held on July 18.
After Sharad Pawar’s extreme unwillingness to stand for election, and alternative candidates Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah opting out, a new candidate was being sought.
Yashwant Sinha had himself given an indication of his willingness to stand for election today morning through a tweet. He said he was “grateful” to Mamata Banerjee for the “honour and prestige” given in the Trinamool Congress. “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,” he went on.
The former bureaucrat has several things going for him, including being a well-respected person, across party lines and a person with wide administrative experience—as an officer in the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Foreign Service, then turning to politics successfully, becoming, among other things, finance minister in Chandra Shekhar’s cabinet, and finance minister and, later, foreign minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet.
His BJP connection, especially being from the Vajpayee era, could also win him brownie points and get him the support of some of the parties which are, apparently, sitting on the fence, like Bihar’s JD(U) and Odisha’s BJD, both of which were part of Vajpayee’s NDA.
To add to his acceptability factor, former diplomat, KC Singh tweeted today about Nitish Kumar being “irritated for a while with ally BJP”, and his likelihood of supporting “a fellow Bihari, after 1st President R Prasad”.
The race for the presidency is truly on. Everyone is now waiting for the announcement of the NDA candidate. Whoever that may be, the presidential election is expected to be an exciting one.
