Taken aback by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s announcement of Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind as the NDA’s presidential candidate on Monday afternoon, Opposition parties decided to meet on June 22 to formally discuss probable candidates for the upcoming presidential election under the chairpersonship of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
However, by naming a Dalit leader as its nominee, the BJP has placed the Opposition in an awkward position — unless it, too, announces a Dalit name. In any case, the name of former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, a Dalit herself, has been doing the rounds for a while.
Expressing its dissatisfaction, the Congress said it was not consulted before the announcement of the NDA’s presidential candidate. “The BJP made a unilateral decision,” senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said. “We came to know about the candidate only after the decision was taken.”
