“Honoured but...” Gopalkrishna Gandhi declines Opposition request to contest Presidential polls

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 20

The opposition on Monday was back to square one on the issue of the presidential election nominee with Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, opting out of the race, saying any candidate for the highest office must inspire a national consensus besides opposition unity.

Gopal Gandhi, 77, declined the request of majority opposition parties to run for the July 18 election. The development followed a Shiv Sena spanner in the discussions. The Sena mouthpiece “Saamna” has recently questioned Gopal Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah’s candidatures for the presidential election as “routine names that often cropped up during the time of presidential election debates but names that lacked the heft or the personality to make the election a tight race.”

Sena had said the opposition needed to take the July 18 election seriously else people will feel if it cannot field a strong presidential candidate how will it find a capable prime minister in 2024.

Gopla Gandhi, in a message today, said, “Several esteemed leaders of the Opposition have done me the honour of thinking of me for the Opposition’s candidature in the up-coming 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 beside Opposition unity.”

The former bureaucrat, who also served as India’s High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka said about the offer of contesting, “I feel there will be others who will do this far better than I.”

He added that he had requested the leaders to give the opportunity to such a person.

“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,” Gopalkrishna Gandhi said on the eve of the second and final opposition meeting on Tuesday to finalize a candidate for the poll.