Pranab calls up Buddha for support
2012-06-14 [15:07:00 hrs] | |  | With Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee declaring their preference for the Presidential polls, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee called up Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, reportedly seeking support for the job at Raisina Hills. Sources said that Congress emissaries have already talked with even very small parties for support for the party’s candidate.
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| | | Incidentally, CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat as well as CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta are on record that they would not support the Congress candidate. However, the Bengal unit of CPM has always maintained good relations with Pranab. Meanwhile, Congress has opened a backtrack to get Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh’s support.
The Congress spokesperson Janardan Dwidevi told the media that Sonia Gandhi did not tell Mamata Banerjee that her party was either for Pranab or Hamid Ansari. Rather she had told her that these two names had cropped up during her talks with various leaders.
The Finance Minister met party president Sonia Gandhi this morning and the Congress core committee is likely to meet in a few hours to decide who the party should declare as its nominee for the presidential election to be held on July 19. This morning, Sonia Gandhi has consulted with senior ministers like AK Antony and P Chidambaram.
Last evening, they created a political emergency by rejecting the two names that the Congress had been pitching to its allies - Mukherjee and Vice-President Hamid Ansari. It wasn't just who they ruled out that left the Congress stumped. Mamata and Mulayam taunted the Congress by suggesting that the PM would be an acceptable candidate, along with former speaker Somnath Chatterjee and scientist APJ Abdul Kalam, who has served earlier as President.
In the complex dynamics of political shadow-play, the two crucial regional parties have thus effectively made it clear that the election for President is very much being used by major players to prep the ground for the general elections in 2014. Anyway, the development in the past two days has already vitiated the relations between Congress and TMC and it would be difficult for the two parties to remain in the same boat till the elections.
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