Meira enters Prez race, files papers

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 28

The 15th presidential election is officially set for a contest with Opposition candidate Meira Kumar throwing her hat in the ring by filing her nomination papers today. She has challenged ruling NDA nominee and former Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind.

Flanked by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Congress chief ministers, including Punjab’s Amarinder Singh, Kumar filed her papers before Lok Sabha Secretary General, the returning officer for July 17 election.

Gandhi is a proposer in one of Kumar’s forms. Also present were Satish Chandra Mishra (BSP), Naresh Agarwal (SP), Derek O Brien (TMC), D Raja (CPI), Tariq Anwar (NCP), Kanimozhi (DMK) and Sanjeev Kumar (JMM) in a show of Opposition strength. Seventeen non-NDA parties, including the Congress, are backing Kumar.

A prominent absentee today was Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, on a holiday since June 13. He sufficed to tweet his support for Kumar today. “Against the ideology of divisiveness she represents the values that bind us as a nation and a people. Proud to have Meira Kumar ji as our candidate,” he tweeted.

Gandhi tagged Kumar’s following election message with his tweet: “The ideological fight stands for what we feel is threatened in our society and for those voices that are forced to remain in the margins.”

Kumar, 72, soon after filing her papers, said the “fight of ideology has begun”. Sonia added to Kumar’s message saying: “For us, it is a battle of ideologies, principles and truth and we will fight it.”

Kumar, a senior Dalit leader of the Congress, became the Opposition nominee for the presidential election after BSP chief Mayawati insisted on fielding a Dalit to counter Kovind, also a Dalit.

Kumar, however, reiterated she was fighting the election for destruction of caste.

“From today onwards, our fight of ideology has started. The ideology we are talking about is based on democratic values, inclusiveness, media and individual freedom, elimination of poverty and destruction of caste,” she said.

Kumar begins her campaign from Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat on June 30. She’ll be in Bihar on July 6 and prior to that she will visit Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Elaborating her campaign strategy, Kumar said: “The choice before the collegiums is between two paths — one that leads to narrow mindedness and lack of concern for the poor; the other that leads to uplift of Dalits and oppressed.”

At the event today, the Congress was in full strength with the presence of CMs Amarinder Singh (Punjab), Siddharamaiah (Karnataka), Virbhadra Singh (HP), V Narayanasamy (Puducherry) and Mukul Sangma (Meghalaya). Also present were former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Haryana CLP leader Kiran Choudhry and Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar.