Eighty-four-year-old Yashwant Sinha may emerge as the opposition’s consensus candidate for the July 18 presidential election with the ex-NDA minister throwing first strong hints that he is ready to run for the highest office of the country.“I am grateful to Mamataji for the honour and prestige she bestowed on me in the TMC. Now a time has come when for a larger national cause I must step aside from the party to work for greater opposition unity. I am sure she approves of the step,” Sinha said in a tweet on Tuesday morning indicating he was ready to enter the contest.
Sinha quit the BJP in late 2020 to join the TMC and became its vice president.A former external and finance minister, Sinha could inspire opposition consensus including support of the Shiv Sena which had vetoed the names of Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah.Both Gandhi and Abdullah opted out of the race.Top Sena sources told The Tribune on Tuesday that they were willing to support NCP chief Sharad Pawar for the presidential candidature but since he backed out they would now support only someone of near if not equal stature to Pawar.“Yashwant Sinha fits the bill. The Sena has worked with him in the NDA earlier,” said a senior Shiv Sena leader.The BJP parliamentary board, meanwhile, will meet on Tuesday evening to finalise the ruling dispensation candidate.Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the meeting of the party’s top decision-making body.A decision on the opposition candidate is expected at an opposition meeting which Pawar will host here on Tuesday.Senior opposition leaders, including Congress’s Mallikarjun Kharge and Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja met Pawar at his residence on Tuesday morning to discuss a potential consensus candidate.The TMC on Monday had proposed Sinha’s name.
