The suspense over who would be the ruling National Democratic Alliance’s candidate for the upcoming presidential polls could be over as early as Tuesday evening.
Top BJP sources involved in the process told The Hindu that the party had almost completed meetings with leaders across the political spectrum and that the announcement of the name, at a parliamentary board meeting of the BJP as early as Tuesday, could be made.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also a member of the parliamentary board will be leaving for Lucknow on Tuesday afternoon, to participate in the International Yoga Day celebrations there on Wednesday morning.
“BJP president Amit Shah met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday. The committee of Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley have spoken to almost all parties and have sent the feedback to both Mr. Shah and Mr. Modi. With Mr. Modi off for his tour of Portugal and the U.S. on June 24, the nomination process will have to be wrapped up by the previous day,” said the source.
“An early announcement, latest by Tuesday evening, therefore will give our supporting parties a heads-up on the name, and time to reach Delhi for the nomination process at Parliament House,” added the source.
Mr. Shah’s meeting with Mr. Thackeray too did not result in any disclosure of the name of the probable NDA candidate.
The Shiv Sena has been a bit of a troublesome ally to the BJP, and had broken ranks with the National Democratic Alliance twice before on presidential polls, in 2007 to elect Pratibha Patil and in 2012 to support the candidature of President Pranab Mukherjee.
“This morning [Sunday], however, Mr. Shah told Mr. Thackeray that as per the resolution passed by the NDA two months ago to endorse the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Sena should support any name put forward by him.
Mr. Thackeray did not deny support, but did put forward the name of agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan as their choice,” said a source privy to the meeting.
“Dr. Swaminathan’s advocacy by Sena is just a posture to project a pro-farmer stance as the Devendra Fadnavis government is facing protests by farmers,” said the source, who added that the Sena in all likelihood will vote with the rest of the NDA.
Seeks time
“We have consulted parties without disclosing the name of the candidate, and therefore it is only fair that some time be given for them to consider our candidate after we announce our choice,” a BJP office-bearer in Delhi added.
He said that four sets of nomination papers with the required 50 proposers each have been kept ready for filing, with the name of the candidate kept blank.
Sources added that Mr. Jaitley spoke to senior leaders in the Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) but refused to disclose any details.
