JOIN USYashwant Sinha files nomination for Presidential polls, to launch campaign in Kerala on June 29
Senior leader Yashwant Sinha on Monday filed his nomination paper for the July 18 Presidential election as the Opposition candidate in the presence of leaders from around 15 parties and is all set to start his campaign from Kerala on Wednesday.
Significantly, TRS leader K T Rama Rao, the son of Telangana Chief Minister K Chadrasekhar Rao, was present at the filing of nomination, while none from Hemant Soren-led JMM was present, as the tribal dominated party is yet to announce its stand. Though it has indicated that it may break ranks with the Opposition to support BJP’s Droupadi Murmu.
Leaders from AAP, which has promised support to Sinha, was absent while Shiv Sena members were also not present owing to political turmoil in Maharashtra. AIMIM, which was part of the meeting that chose Sinha, too skipped the event.
Sinha’s rival Droupadi Murmu now has votes with a value of around 6.28 lakh committed to her. If one adds JMM and JD(S) to it, it could touch 6.39 lakh out of 10.86 lakh in the electoral college. Sinha’s vote share shrunk to 4.28 lakh votes after the BSP announced support for Murmu.
Sources said Sinha will leave for Kerala, from where he is expected to get the support of all 140 MLAs and 29 MPS, on Tuesday and would launch his campaign from the southern state the next day. He will then head to Tamil Nadu on Thursday followed by Gujarat on July 1 and Karnataka on July 2.
After filing the papers, Sinha, who was accompanied by his wife Neelima, along with other Opposition leaders went to the Gandhi Statue and Ambedkar Statue in Parliament House complex where they paid homage to the towering leaders.
Top Opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Farooq Abdullah, Sitaram Yechury and D Raja among others were present during the filing of nomination. Four sets of nominations were filed to Rajya Sabha Secretary General P C Mody, who is the returning officer for the presidential election.
Senior leaders like Rajasthan Chief minister Ashok Gehlot, TMC's Abhishek Banerjee and Saugata Roy, DMK's Tiruchi Siva and A Raja, RSP’s N K Premachandran, RLD’s Jayant Singh, RJD’s Misa Bharti and Muslim League’s E T Mohammed Bashir were also present during the filing of nomination.
After Sinha filed his nominations, Rahul told reporters, "We are all unitedly supporting Yashwant Sinha ji. Of course, we are supporting the individual, but the real fight is between two ideologies. One ideology of RSS - anger, hatred, and the other of compassion of all the opposition parties who are standing together."
Yechury said it was not a question of identity politics and the BJP wanted to make it so. "We respect the BJP's candidate but it is a contest of ideologies," he said.
Senior Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy said, "It is not a fight between two individuals only, it is a fight between two ideologies - between communalism and secularism and authoritarianism versus democracy. And I think under the circumstances, Yashwant Sinha is the best candidate. It is a rainbow coalition of the best values of the country."
Sinha, a former BJP Union Minister in A B Vajpayee government who quit the party in 2018 and joined Trinamool Congress last year, was chosen as Opposition candidate, after Pawar, Abdullah and former Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who is also the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, declined the Opposition offer to be the joint candidate. Sinha’s opponent Murmu filed her papers on June 24.
Committee of senior leaders
A 11-member committee of senior leaders has been formed to steer the campaign of Opposition’s joint Presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha, which includes Congress chief spokesperson Jairam Ramesh and CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury.
The others in the committee include CPI General Secretary D Raja, Trinamool Congress chief spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Samajwadi Party Rajya Sabha leader Ramgopal Yadav, DMK Rajya Sabha leader Tiruchi Siva, NCP’s Praful Patel, TRS’ Ranjit Reddy, RJD’s Manoj K Jha and Sudheendra Kulkarni, who represents civil society.
Shiv Sena will nominate an 11th member to the committee.