Presidential poll: Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna opts out, TMC mulls Yashwant Sinha's name

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 20

The Opposition on Monday was back to the drawing board on the issue of fielding a joint candidate for the July 18 presidential election with Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, opting out of the race saying a candidate for the highest office must inspire national consensus besides opposition unity.

Gopalkrishna (77) pulled out on the eve of a key Opposition meeting NCP chief Sharad Pawar will host here on Tuesday to finalise the presidential election nominee of the non-BJP camp.

Presidential poll

• Divided Opposition is back to the drawing board
• Sharad Pawar will host a key meeting on Tuesday
• Shiv Sena had opposed names of Gopal, Farooq

The TMC is now said to be mulling the name of its vice-president Yashwant Sinha as a probable candidate after Gopalkrishna and NC patron Farooq Abdullah opted out. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee won’t attend tomorrow’s meeting and has nominated nephew Abhishek to be present. Sinha (84), however, told The Tribune, “No one has approached me on this issue so far.” Asked if he would be open should an offer come, the former NDA minister, who quit the BJP in 2018, said, “A key lesson in politics is never answer a hypothetical question.” A consensus continues to elude the Opposition with parties divided on fielding Gopalkrishna and earlier NC patron Farooq Abdullah.

Both have now stepped back. The Shiv Sena openly threw a spanner in the wheels of Opposition discussions by terming both Gopalkrishna and Abdullah as “regular names that lacked heft”.

Gopalkrishna, while withdrawing his name today, said, “Several esteemed leaders of the Opposition have done me the honour of thinking of me for the Opposition’s candidature in the upcoming elections for the highest office of Rashtrapati. I am most grateful to them. But having considered the matter deeply, I see that the Opposition’s candidate should be one who will generate a national consensus and a national atmosphere, besides Opposition unity. I feel there will be others who will do this far better than I.”

The former bureaucrat who served as the Governor of West Bengal said, “May India get a President worthy of the office presaged by Rajaji as the last Governor General and inaugurated by Dr Rajendra Prasad as our first President.”

Importantly, the Shiv Sena’s caustic references to Gopalkrishna and Abdullah in its mouthpiece “Saamna” upset the Opposition calculations.

Sena’s opposition to Gopalkrishna and Abdullah stems from its politics having made public calls for Bharat Ratna to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, known for closeness to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse. Sena is also uncomfortable with the fact that Gopalkrishna, a known critic of capital punishment, had famously urged late President Pranab Mukherjee to reconsider the rejection of 1993 Mumbai serial blast convict Yakub Memon’s mercy plea.

Eighteen Opposition parties had, however, backed Gopalkrishna as a consensus candidate for the 2017 vice-presidential election, which he lost to NDA’s M Venkaiah Naidu.The current occasion is tricky for the non-NDA camp as this is the first time it has had to contend with the Shiv Sena, which was on the BJP’s side until the previous presidential election. Reconciling political differences remains a challenge for the Opposition for which the presidential poll is the first test of unity ahead of the 2024 General Election.

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