Even as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party continued to keep their counsel on the presidential elections, Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Odisha Jayalalithaa and Naveen Patnaik made a surprise announcement on Thursday: their parties had decided to support the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Purno Agitok Sangma, for the top job.
Mr. Sangma's own party, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), however, distanced itself from this pronouncement. “Sangma has not spoken to us. We've had no discussions,” NCP chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said here, stressing, “ … with such a limited strength, we cannot aspire for such a major post.”
The AIADMK decided to back Mr. Sangma for the presidency, Ms. Jayalalithaa said in a statement, after her consultations with Mr. Patnaik, when the latter was in the Tamil Nadu capital on May 11. Four days later, Mr Sangma, accompanied by daughter and Union Minister of State for Rural Development Agatha Sangma, had visited Chennai and called on the Chief Minister to lobby for a “tribal” President.
Pointing out that no member of a tribal community had so far become President, Ms. Jayalalithaa said Mr. Sangma wasn't just a tribal, he was “also eminently qualified to be the President of our great nation.” Simultaneously, in Bhubaneswar, Mr. Patnaik said the Biju Janata Dal would support Mr. Sangma's candidature.
On Thursday, Mr. Sangma was quick to express his gratitude to the two Chief Ministers for being “responsive to tribal aspirations,” while appealing to leaders of all other political parties “to support our cause.” Unfazed by the lack of backing from the NCP, he said he was only “representing the voice of tribals” and claimed that tribal MLAs and MPs from all parties were with him, even naming two BJP tribal leaders, Karia Munda, currently Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker, and Nand Kumar Sai, who had accompanied him to Chennai to meet Ms. Jayalalithaa. But Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and BJP leader Arun Jaitley, whom he met last week to seek support for a tribal President, had been reportedly non-committal. Mr. Sangma had, on that occasion, named the former Nagaland Chief Minister, S.C. Jamir, when asked who he had in mind.
Mr. Sangma's claim of support from Union Tribal Affairs Minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo was also denied. When The Hindu contacted Mr. Deo, he disassociated himself from the move, saying he would be bound by the decision of his party, the Congress, on this matter.
The 64-year-old former Lok Sabha Speaker and Meghalaya Chief Minister had hit the headlines when he, along with Mr. Pawar, had stormed out of the Congress on the issue of Sonia Gandhi's “foreign origin,” to form the NCP. An eight-term Lok Sabha MP, he currently represents the Tura (ST) Assembly constituency in the West Garo Hills district, Meghalaya.
This article has been corrected for a factual error. Mr. Sangma is currently a Meghalaya MLA and not as mentioned.
