Sonia Gandhi is working hard to ensure that Pranab Mukherjee gets the support of all major political parties including the Left and even the BJP for her Presidential candidate.
Since BJP was completely opposed to Dr Hamid Ansari and so was Mamata Banerjee, Mrs Gandhi decided not to promote him. Instead, she chose Pranab Mukherjee who is capable of winning the hearts and votes of the Opposition parties. He can achieve “near unanimity” if not “complete unity” in the Presidential race and P A Sangma may even be running for a cover in the end.
The Left parties have already signaled that they are not opposed to the Congress’ presidential candidate per se. But they would ought to know his name. It seems the Left has been sounded out at an informal level for the “son of the soil” of west Bengal. How can Left oppose him and even the unpredictable Mamata Banerjee will fall in line. The allies of the UPA have by and large consented for Congress candidate. The Samajwadi Party is not averse to supporting him either. Lalu Prasad Yadav will have to be sheepish as he had prematurely come out in support of Dr Hamid Ansari.
The BJP leaders are keeping their fingers crossed as Gujrat CM narendra Modi wants party to back P A Sangma. It was Modi who is sewing his own political alliances with J Jayalalitha and Naveen Patnaik. But the BJP is not very eager to back Sangma for the sake of a contest.
When Nitin Gadkari went to invite Sonia Gandhi for the marriage of his son, the louder message was that there would not be any confrontation on such issues. Sonia is keen to avoid a contest for the post as was the case in 2007 when the BJP fielded its candidate against Pratibha Patil. It may also be mentioned that Pranab Mukherjee and L K Advani are very close and leaders of the Opposition in both houses have cordial relations with him.
If Pranab Mukherjee was not made head of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on coal regulator and instead the task was given to Home Minister P Chidambaram, the finance minister is not taking several decisions which can turn out to be controvertial. It is certain that notification will be issued in the second week of June after the new Chief Election Commissioner takes over and nomination may be filed on June 16 before the PM leaves on 5-day foreign trip.
