NEW DELHI, June 22: The opposition today unanimously decided to field Meira Kumar, a dalit, as its joint candidate for the presidential election against NDA’s dalit activist Ram Nath Kovind, with 17 parties supporting the former Lok Sabha speaker’s candidature. The decision was taken at a meeting of the 17 non-NDA parties in Parliament House Library, with the leaders endorsing the name of the former minister and diplomat, whose father, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Jagjivan Ram, was often hailed as one of the tallest dalit leaders in the country.“We have 17 opposition leaders present here and all of us have decided to jointly field Meira Kumar as a candidate for the forthcoming election for the President of India,” Congress president Sonia Gandhi announced after the meeting. Asked to comment on Nitish Kumar’s JD-U, which is supporting Kovind and stayed out of meeting, she said, “We do hope that other opposition parties join us.” Gandhi added that she was “not upset with anybody”. Her party colleague, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, said Kumar had been “selected unanimously”. All the 17 parties had proposed her name, he said. He added Kumar was the “illustrious daughter” of former Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram. “There could not be a better candidate than her,” he said. CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury said, “we are appealing to everybody” to support her.
After the meeting, Lalu Prasad of the RJD said he would meet Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and “appeal to him again to rethink” his party’s decision to support the NDA nominee, which he called a “historic blunder”. He also said there was no threat to the Bihar Government, a coalition of the JD(U), RJD and Congress. BSP’s Satish Chandra Misra said his party leader Mayawati had earlier said if there was a “better Dalit candidate” (than Kovind), the person should be fielded by the Opposition. “Meira Kumar is a better candidate,” Misra quoted the BSP leader and former UP Chief Minister as saying. – PTI
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