In the presence of various opposition leaders, Yashwant Sinha, the unified opposition candidate for president, filed his nomination today. He was accompanied by the leader of the NCP, Sharad Pawar, and former Congressman Rahul Gandhi, who described the election as a “fight of ideologies.”
The opposition leaders who were present at the Parliament house when 84-year-old former union minister Yashwant Sinha filed his nomination as the consensus candidate from 14 opposition parties included Telangana Minister and TRS leader KT Rama Rao, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, Jammu & Kashmir National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, RLD leader Jayant Sinha, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, DMK leader.
Misa Bharti of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, NK Premchandran of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, and Mohammed Bashir of the Indian Union Muslim League were also in attendance.
Aam Aadmi Party and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, two significant opposition parties, chose not to send any delegates to the nomination. The tribal candidate Ms. Murmu has received the support of two significant non-BJP parties, including Mayawati’s BSP and the BJD in Odisha. Draupadi Murmu, if elected, would be India’s first tribal leader.
PC Mody, the secretary general of the Rajya Sabha and the returning officer for the presidential election, received four sets of nomination papers from Sinha.
At a meeting of key opposition figures on June 21, Sinha, a former bureaucrat who served as a union minister under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration, was selected as the joint candidate for president.
The K Chandrashekhar Rao-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi , which had previously expressed concerns about the selection process and sharing a platform with the opposition Congress, today announced its support for Sinha as a last-minute boost.
The odds are overwhelmingly against Sinha, and Draupadi Murmu of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is the most likely winner. The opposition is attempting to present a unified front against the BJP, thus today’s display of force is being viewed as an important political move.
Sinha has stated that if elected president, he will be “more constitutional” than Draupadi Murmu and that a “rubber stamp” president will not do. Additionally, he stated that the election is “a struggle of ideas to maintain the Constitution of India,” even though they do not have a “personal conflict” with Murmu.
In order to elect the President, one must surpass the 50 percent threshold, and the ruling party now holds roughly 49 percent of the electoral college. The last date for filing nominations is June 29, and the elections will be held on July 18.
Also Read: https://clipper28.com/en/bharat-readies-to-welcome-a-tribal-president/
