Presidential election: 16 Opposition parties attend Mamata Banerjee’s meet; TRS, AAP, SAD skip

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 15

Representatives of 16 Opposition parties on Wednesday arrived for the crucial meeting convened by TMC chief Mamata Banerjee to discuss the July 18 presidential election nominee of the non-NDA camp.

The TRS, AAP, Shiromani Akali Dal, BJD and YSRCP skipped the meeting.

The Congress and Left leaders are both attending, so are top leaders of the NCP, Shiv Sena, SP, NC, PDP and IUML.

Among leaders currently attending the conference at the Constitution Club are Mallikarjun Kharge, Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Surjewala of the Congress, Elamaram Kareem of the CPM, Binoy Viswam of the CPI, Dipankar Bhattacharya of the CPIML, Omar Abdullah of the NC, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, RLD’s Jayant Chowdhary, DMK’s TR Baalu, NCP’s Sharad Pawar, RJD’s Manoj Jha, RSP’s NK Premachandran,  Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, JDS’ HD Dewe Gowda and HD Kumaraswamy.

The JMM is being represented by MP Vijay Hasda.

The meeting came a day after CPM general Secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general Secretary D Raja and NCP’s Praful Patel called up Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi to consider running for the presidential election.

The call was made in the presence of NCP chief Pawar when the Left leaders called on him yesterday.

Gandhi has sought time to think about the proposal and has said he would get back to the opposition.

Meanwhile, NC patron Farooq Abdullah’s name along with Dewe Gowda and Ghulam Nabi Azad also remain on the table.

Mamata had invited eight CMs, including Arvind Kejriwal, Bhagwant Mann, Naveen Patnaik, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Hemant Soren and Uddhav Thackeray.