Presidential election 2022: Sharad Pawar convenes meeting of Opposition, Yashwant Sinha's name may come to fore

Presidential Election 2022: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar has called a meeting in Delhi on Tuesday. In this meeting, the Trinamool Congress is likely to propose the name of the party's national Vice President and former Union minister Yashwant Sinha as a potential President candidate.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will not be able to attend the meeting. Instead her nephew and Trinamool's national General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee will attend the meeting called by Sharad Pawar. The meeting has been called to formulate a strategy for the upcoming Presidential election.

Read | Gopalkrishna Gandhi will not contest for President, declines Opposition's request

A top Trinamool Congress leader, on the condition of anonymity, said, "Proposals have come from some parties to propose the name of Yashwant Sinha as a possible opposition candidate for the presidential election. However, everything will depend on the proceedings of Tuesday's meeting and the names suggested by other parties in the meeting."

"I am grateful to Mamataji for the honour and prestige she bestowed on me in 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..," tweets TMC vice president Yashwant Sinha. pic.twitter.com/caDjxc4fPe

— ANI (@ANI) June 21, 2022

The Presidential election in India is conducted indirectly through an electoral college consisting of members of Parliament and the legislative assemblies of states and Union territories. On Monday, former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi decline the request to be the joint Opposition's President candidate

Earlier, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and National Conference President Farooq Abdullah also decline the request of being the joint Opposition candidate. While TMC sources are now pitching the name of former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha (84), the possibility of any unanimity on his name appears thin.

Yashwant Sinha, a retired IAS officer, first served as the Union Finance Minister and then the External Affairs Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government. He left the BJP in 2018 before joining the Trinamool Congress in 2021. He was appointed the party's national Vice President just before the Assembly election last year.