New Delhi: Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh are round the corner, but Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is busy with the presidential elections scheduled in July.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) leader called on Somnath Chatterjee on Tuesday morning to discuss the possibility of putting the Lok Sabha Speaker as a candidate for Presidency.
The SP has publicly declared its support for Chatterjee if he were to contest the elections. The SP had supported President A P J Abdul Kalam in the last elections but he has indicated that he is not interested in a second term.
The Left has not yet taken a decision on Chatterjee but SP has suggested that he be the joint candidate of both the factions.
The Congress has not indicated its choice yet but may have to go in for a compromise candidate, as it won’t have enough numbers in the college of MPs and MLAs that elects the President.
Chatterjee, however, will face opposition from the BJP, which is upset with his functioning as Speaker. The favourites
An opinion poll conducted by a leading news magazine has found that an overwhelming majority of three out of four wants Kalam for another term in presidency.
The survey conducted by 'The Week-C Voter Opinion Poll' found that 74.8 per cent of 1,240 respondents favoured incumbent Kalam as the next President. 12.4 per cent of those surveyed said 'no' to his candidature while almost an equal number could not say anything on the issue.
To a question if he was the best President ever, 61.3 per cent nodded in the affirmative, while 22.7 per cent did not think so.
Asked whom would they prefer in a field of Kalam, Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Congress leader Karan Singh, the President scored an impressive 64 per cent, while Shekhawat got 15.3 per cent and Singh 6.9 per cent.
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