UPA will shortly decide on presidential candidate: Pranab

  The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Congress will shortly decide on a presidential candidate,  Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who was named as the Congress party's first choice for the post, said Thursday.

“The question is that UPA and Congress have to come up with a candidate and who will be the presidential candidate will be decided shortly,” Mukherjee told reporters here. 

Mukherjee, who met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Thursday morning, is the ruling party's first choice, followed by Vice President Hamid Ansari. 

However, UPA allies, the Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party threw a spanner in the works Wednesday by coming out with a list of three names - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee.