Presidential Election: Yashwant Sinha Emerges As Possible Oppn Candidate After Pawar, Gandhi, Abdullah's Exit

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee got calls and she is additionally pitching for Yashwant Sinha as the joint opposition nominee.

Former union minister Yashwant Sinha (Source: Getty)

New Delhi: Yashwant Sinha, who is currently the co-president of the Trinamool Congress, is likely to be fielded in the Presidential election by the party, a senior Trinamool Congress leader said on Monday. The name of the former BJP leader who joined the TMC last year has been proposed as a presidential poll candidate by a couple of opposition parties and three to four have backed it, he said.

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee got calls and she is additionally pitching for Sinha as the joint opposition nominee, he said.

Prior, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi were proposed however every one of them declined the request.

Sinha is a TMC leader now. Thus, we need no disarray that the proposal has gone from us. At this point, three to four parties have settled on his name. Presently let others choose, the senior TMC leader said.

Sinha's name will be examined at a meeting of significant opposition parties met by NCP chief Sharad Pawar in New Delhi to build a consensus on fielding a joint candidate against the BJP-drove NDA on Tuesday.

TMC public general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee will address his party at the meeting.

Mamata Banerjee had assembled such a conference of 22 non-BJP parties last week in the public capital. Seventeen of them attended it.

Banerjee proposed Pawar, Abdullah and Gandhi as conceivable joint opposition candidate in the presidential election yet they didn't acknowledge the request. Sinha's name surfaced from that point.

Sinha had served as Union Finance minister twice- once in the Chandra Sekhar cabinet in 1990 and afterward again in the Vajpayee ministry. He likewise held the arrangement of the External Affairs service in the Vajpayee cabinet.

Voting for the presidential election is to begin on July 18, while the results will be announced on July 21. 

(With PTI inputs)