Ansari leads, Pranab lags
11 May 2012 3:38 AM GMT
The days of speculation and lobbying for the presidential nominee of the Congress, and therefore the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), seem to be over. It looks that Congress has made up its mind on a name and got the allies and independent parties behind it to sail through the election. And, it is not the candidate who has been discussed the most in the past two weeks.
The sources in the Congress have told Millennium Post that Vice President Hamid Ansari has moved far ahead of the finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential race. This trend reflects the thinking of the top leadership of the party.
The highly placed sources from the Congress have unravelled the complexities that are going into selecting a presidential candidate for the UPA. Till a few days back, the media was abuzz with the talk of the balance tilting in favour of Mukherjee, especially after the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee okayed his name if she got a financial package for West Bengal.
The Congress sources told Millennium Post: 'Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has been receiving positive response from all corners of the party, and no one has opposed his candidature except in one statement given by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj. Apart from her no one has voiced similar sentiments.'
Then, the source explains the Congress dilemma, 'Basically there are two names which the Congress has in mind: Pranab Mukherjee and Hamid Ansari. In fact, Ansari is being considered as the first and primary choice by the party. Mukherjee has directly sent feelers to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi that he is interested in being appointed as the president, as he knows that this is his final chance to have a got at this post. Whereas a lot of people in the party feel that he is an independent-minded person, so it will not be very easy to propose his name.' The Congress will rather prefer a name which would listen to them indisputably.
The party feels that since Mukherjee can manage people within and outside the party well, he may have an edge over Ansari, who is an outsider. Mukherjee's critics in the party have anticipated this line of reasoning and have started talking of the senior leader Motilal Vora as the possible insider for the presidential post.
The role of the allies is important in this election, but the Congress is confident that it can pull through with the support of few pivotal players. 'The Left will support Ansari's candidature. While the UPA has four and a half lakh votes, the NDA and regional parties both have three lakh votes each. So, if we have the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party on board, we will win. We already have the support of the Trinamool Congress,' the source said.
The sources in the Congress have told Millennium Post that Vice President Hamid Ansari has moved far ahead of the finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential race. This trend reflects the thinking of the top leadership of the party.
The highly placed sources from the Congress have unravelled the complexities that are going into selecting a presidential candidate for the UPA. Till a few days back, the media was abuzz with the talk of the balance tilting in favour of Mukherjee, especially after the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee okayed his name if she got a financial package for West Bengal.
The Congress sources told Millennium Post: 'Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has been receiving positive response from all corners of the party, and no one has opposed his candidature except in one statement given by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj. Apart from her no one has voiced similar sentiments.'
Then, the source explains the Congress dilemma, 'Basically there are two names which the Congress has in mind: Pranab Mukherjee and Hamid Ansari. In fact, Ansari is being considered as the first and primary choice by the party. Mukherjee has directly sent feelers to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi that he is interested in being appointed as the president, as he knows that this is his final chance to have a got at this post. Whereas a lot of people in the party feel that he is an independent-minded person, so it will not be very easy to propose his name.' The Congress will rather prefer a name which would listen to them indisputably.
The party feels that since Mukherjee can manage people within and outside the party well, he may have an edge over Ansari, who is an outsider. Mukherjee's critics in the party have anticipated this line of reasoning and have started talking of the senior leader Motilal Vora as the possible insider for the presidential post.
The role of the allies is important in this election, but the Congress is confident that it can pull through with the support of few pivotal players. 'The Left will support Ansari's candidature. While the UPA has four and a half lakh votes, the NDA and regional parties both have three lakh votes each. So, if we have the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party on board, we will win. We already have the support of the Trinamool Congress,' the source said.
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