Efforts on for consensus candidate for presidential polls

NEW DELHI: With 48.6 % of its own NDA votes already in pocket and barely a few days left for nominations to be filed, ruling BJP on Wednesday sought time from Congress president Sonia Gandhi and CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, among leaders from other opposition parties, to discuss the Presidential candidate and try for a consensus to emerge on it.Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi is leaving for the US on June 25, BJP sources said the NDA candidate is likely to file his or her nomination around June 23. The last day for withdrawing the nomination is on June 28. The Election Commission’s notification for the Presidential elections came on Wednesday. Speculation about who will be the ruling party’s candidate is still rife.

The three-member team of senior ministers – Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and M Venkaiah Naidu — who have been assigned to deliberate with other parties will be meeting with Sonia Gandhi and Yechury on Friday. Naidu and Singh are likely to call on Gandhi, it is learnt. Naidu has already spoken to PMK leader Ambumani Ramadoss, All India (NR) Congress leader Ramaswamy, NCP MP Praful Patel and BSP MP Satish Mishra. According to sources, Naidu will also try to meet BSP chief Mayawati.

Jaitley is likely to discuss the matter with Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and JD(U) leader and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar among others. With home minister Rajnath Singh’s good personal equation with TMC leader and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, it is likely that he will talk to her.

The three-member committee have already held their internal meetings as Jaitley and Naidu met over tea on Tuesday and Shah dropped in to join them. On Wednesday morning Naidu went over to meet Singh. At the party headquarters here, Shah held a meeting with his general secretaries Bhupinder Yadav, Kailash Vijaywarghiya and Arun Singh.

Shah’s travel plans for Maharashtra scheduled from Thursday for three days have not been postponed, but since he is in the midst of touring across the country to inprove BJP’s voteshare for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, some other state visits may have to reworked following the need for him to stay in the national capital for the Presidential polls, sources said.

While BJP chief Amit Shah postponed his three-day Odisha tour scheduled for next week, to remain in Delhi for nomination to be filed for election to the top office, the three senior ministers met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, while the opposition parties held a meeting here in Parliament premises on Wednesday to decide on their move on the issue.