In a dalit versus dalit contest, former Lok Sabha Speaker and onetime diplomat Meira Kumar, daughter of the late Scheduled Caste icon Babu Jagjivan Ram, will take on the NDA's Ram Nath Kovind in next month's presidential election, a 17-party conglomerate of Opposition parties decided Thursday.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday declared previous Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar as their presidential candidate.
"The Opposition's nominee for President's post Meira Kumar is more capable and popular than the NDA candidate", she said moments after the UPA announced Kumar's candidature. The most hard choice, perhaps, would be for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. She was elected unopposed as the first woman Speaker of Lok Sabha and served from 2009 to 2014.
Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, DMK's Kanimozhi and National Conference's Omar Abdullah also attended the meeting.
During his almost two years' tenure as the Bihar governor, Kovind handled himself with dignity and poise and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was quite impressed with the his demeanour and grace which convinced him to back his candidature for the president's post, he said. Following a meeting with NCP chief Sharad Pawar at his residence, top Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel reportedly discussed the Opposition's plan for the July 17 presidential poll.
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Minutes after the announcement of her candidature, former UP CM and prominent Dailt leader Mayawati, who had earlier said she could not oppose Kovind's candidature as he was a Dalit, today offered her support to the opposition's candidate.
Asked about Nitish Kumar's decision, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad said it was "not a fight of personalities, but that of ideology". Mr Pawar, who spoke first, is learnt to have proposed the names of Mr Shinde and Mr Mungekar first and after that of Ms Kumar.
Other names in the fray were Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Prakash Ambedkar, but other parties, including the Congress, are believed to have put their weight behind Meira Kumar.
Stating that the JD (U)'s decision to stand by Kovind's candidature for the president's post is an "isolated incident", Tyagi said that his party would continue to be an integral part of the united opposition. He also said there was no threat to the Bihar government, a coalition of the JD-U, RJD and Congress.
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