New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday rejected the eight-party Third Front’s request to support President A P J Abdul Kalam as a consensus candidate and said there was no need for a meeting on the issue.
Pratibha Patil is UPA’s candidate in the Presidential election and there is going to be no change, Gandhi told the alliance.
In a day of fast-paced developments, Kalam surprised all when he told a delegation of Third Front leaders that he was willing to contest a second term if there was “certainty†on he being selected as a consensus candidate.
"As there is overwhelming love from people from across the country, I am willing to go for a second term if there is certainity. However, I am willing to wait for a few days," Kalam told the delegation.
Third Front leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chandrababu Naidu and Vaiko then met former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and other senior BJP leaders to garner support for Kalam.
Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh said the NDA was backing Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in the election but would support Kalam if there were consensus among all parties. Shekhawat, an Independent candidate, has said he would pull out of the race if Kalam enters the election.
The Congress and the Left rejected Shekhawat's statement. "A candidate has been proposed by the UPA. We have to garner support for the UPA candidate," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told PTI.
Naidu met Gandhi twice after visiting Rashtrapati Bhavan but she rejected the alliance’s request to support Kalam.
Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan told reporters that the Third Front's support for Kalam was nothing but a "ploy to muddy the waters" of the presidential elections.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi has convened a meeting of all Congress chief ministers and office-bearers of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Thursday to chalk out the election strategy for the UPA candidate Pratibha Patil.
Comments
0 comment