The United Progressive Alliance’s Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee will kick off his formal election campaign for the July 19 poll from Chennai to honour a promise he made to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) supremo M. Karunanidhi and his son M.K. Stalin, who met him in Delhi recently. Mr. Karunanidhi, Congress sources said, had requested him to make Chennai his first stopover as the Presidential candidate after he filed his nomination papers on Thursday — as well as to make the Tamil Nadu capital his first port of call after he was elected President. While Mr. Mukherjee will fly to Chennai on June 30 on the first leg of his campaign, it remains to be seen whether he will accede to the second part of the DMK leader’s request as well.
Long association
Mr. Karunanidhi and Mr. Mukherjee share a warm decades-long association that continued even in the years when the latter was not a Minister, DMK sources said. Mr. Karunanidhi’s late nephew Murasoli Maran, too, knew the Congress leader well.
Meanwhile, the Congress plans to utilise Thursday, when Mr. Mukherjee will file his nomination papers, to demonstrate its political clout, even though one key ally, the Trinamool Congress, is not backing its candidate. Leaders of all other UPA constituents, including the Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, the DMK’s T.R. Baalu, the National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah and the Indian Union Muslim League’s E. Ahmed, are expected to be present on the occasion, apart from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Not just that, the Congress will be able to flaunt nomination papers signed by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) convener and Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati.
Calls on Sharad Yadav
Indeed, on Wednesday, dressed in a dhoti-panjabi (kurta), Bengali-style, Mr. Mukherjee, accompanied by Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pawan K. Bansal, and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office V. Narayanasamy, called on Mr. Sharad Yadav at the latter’s residence to thank him for supporting him: during a 20-minute meeting, the two men shared their many encounters in Parliament, with Mr. Mukherjee even recalling that Mr. Sharad Yadav had resigned his Lok Sabha seat thrice on different issues. Mr. Sharad Yadav, on his part, said that had the Congress managed things better, the former Union Finance Minister could have been a consensus candidate — and that he would be missed in Parliament.
The JD(U)’s decision to back Mr. Mukherjee’s candidature has upset the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — the largest party in the NDA — which is backing the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Purno Sangma, who will also file his nomination papers for the Presidential elections on Thursday. He is likely to be accompanied by senior BJP leaders, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy and senior MPs of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Biju Janata Dal and the Shiromani Akali Dal.
Thanks Mayawati
In the evening, Mr. Mukherjee called on Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, even as MoS for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla flew to Lucknow to request BSP supremo Mayawati to sign another set of nomination papers, while Mr. Mukherjee called her over telephone to thank her and tell her that he would be shortly visiting Lucknow to meet her. Mr. Sharad Yadav and Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav have already signed Mr. Mukherjee’s nomination papers.
