Gopalkrishna Gandhi May Emerge As Possible Opposition Candidate For Presidential Polls: Report
77-year-old Gopalkrishna Gandhi was the governor of West Bengal from 2004 to 2009. He is also a former bureaucrat who has served as India’s High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka.
New Delhi: In a bid to put up a united fight in the upcoming presidential polls, some leaders of the Opposition have reached out to former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi as a possible choice, reported news agency PTI quoting sources.
Gandhi was the consensus opposition candidate for the post of vice president of India in 2017, but had lost to M Venkaiah Naidu in the election.
Some leaders of the Opposition have talked with Gandhi over phone and have urged him to consider their request to be the joint Opposition candidate for the post of President in the election, the report stated.
Apart from Gandhi, there are other names too that are being considered and the opposition leaders have also tried reaching out to them to get their consent on the same.
As per the report, Gandhi has sought some time from these leaders and will get back to them by Wednesday adding that the leaders who had talked to them said that his initial response to the request was “positive”.
If he accepts the request, he could emerge as the consensus opposition candidate for the top post, since there already was consensus on his name in the last vice presidential election, the report added quoting sources.
77-year-old Gopalkrishna Gandhi was the governor of West Bengal from 2004 to 2009. He is also a former bureaucrat who has served as India’s High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka.
He is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and C Rajagopalachari.
The presidential polls are scheduled to take place next month on July 18 and the results will be counted on July 21.
The term of present President Ram Nath Kovind will come to an end on July 24. He had defeated joint opposition nominee Meira Kumar in the last presidential poll.
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