Presidential Election 2017: Mamata Banerjee favours Opposition consensus on candidate in late night meet with Sonia Gandhi

"Different people are being targeted. Laluji, Mayawati, Akhilesh (Yadav), Naveen Patnaik, Chidambaram, Kejriwal, and our party too. This is not proper," she said.

Written by: Surabhi Shaurya

Updated: May 17, 2017, 10:02 AM IST

Share

Share Article

• Facebook
• WhatsApp
• X
• Email
• Telegram
• Linkedin

https://www.india.com/news/india/presidential-elections-2017-mamata-banerjee-favours-opposition-consensus-on-candidate-in-late-night-meet-with-sonia-gandhi-2139753/ Copy

New Delhi: In a bid to field a joint candidate for upcoming Presidential election, West Bengal Chief Mamata Banerjee met Congress President Sonia Gandhi at 10 Janpath on Tuesday. The meeting which lasted for 40-minutes was attended by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi too. Talking to media after the meeting, Mamata said,”We want the entire Opposition to get together and come up with a candidate who will be good for the country.”

“India is a vast country and unity is our biggest strength. Hence it is better for the country to go in for a consensus candidate,” TOI quoted Mamata as saying. The TMC chief also urged government to take initiative to build a consensus on the Presidential candidate.

Banerjee also lashed out at ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and accused the Narendra Modi-led government of practising “vendetta politics” against opposition leaders, in the wake of Income Tax Department raid on RJD chief Lalu Prasad and the CBI raid on Karti Chidambaram, son of former union Minister P. Chidambaram,

“Political vendetta is going on. We also discussed what is going on from this morning. Political battles should be fought politically. If they (BJP) do not like someone, they throw charges at them, they get them raided, they jail them. Different people are being targeted. Laluji, Mayawati, Akhilesh (Yadav), Naveen Patnaik, Chidambaram, Kejriwal, and our party too. This is not proper,” she told reporters.

Earlier, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar pitched for a second term for President Pranab Mukherjee. Suggesting the ruling party (BJP) must initiate talks with political parties, Nitish said that it will be good if he (Pranab Mukherjee) becomes the President again.

Pranab Mukherjee’s tenure as President will complete on July 24. He took charge as the President of India in July 2012, defeating the NDA candidate, late PA Sangma. As per the reports of PTI, Mukherjee had secured 7.13 lakh votes as against 3.15 lakh polled by Sangma. ames of former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and JD(U) veteran Sharad Yadav are doing the rounds as possible joint opposition candidate.