New Delhi, May 3: CPI(M), which is seeking an overall consensus on the issue of election of the next President, today said it has not finalised its stand on the poll as yet and would consult other parties before doing so.
“As far as the Presidential election is concerned, the party has not discussed our stand yet. We will be consulting with other parties. The Left parties are meeting tomorrow and after that the Politburo will meet on May six and take a decision,” CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told PTI when asked about the issue.
Party MP and Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the Left parties would discuss the Presidential poll tomorrow.
“Election of the President with consensus is in the country's favour, but if there is no consensus then elections will be held...It is the responsibility of the ruling party to evolve a consensus on the issue. They should take initiative and try to build consensus,” he told reporters here.
Yechury noted that when A P J Abdul Kalam was fielded in 2002, the Left had put up leading figure of the Indian National Army, Capt Lakshmi Sehgal, as there was no consensus.
To a question on the Left's stand on probable candidates like Vice President Hamid Ansari and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, he said if the Congress narrowed down its choice to these two names, then the Left would like to see on whose name there is consensus.
“That is the best approach. As far as Hamid Ansari is concerned, the Left had proposed his name for Vice Presidentship last time. As far as Pranab Mukherjee is concerned, the name was doing rounds last time also and we said we have no objection,” he said.
“The point is not that where we stand, the point is on whose name there is consensus,” Yechury said. Meanwhile, holdingthat the President should always be a political person, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav today refused to express his opinion on probable candidates for the forthcoming election to the country's highest office.
“We cannot discuss Presidential election at this moment, When candidates are announced, then you can take my view,” he told reporters outside Parliament House. Yadav was asked whom his party will support during the Presidential election.
On whether the President should be a person with political background, he said, “The President should always be a political person.”
Pratibha Patil, the country's first woman President, will demit office on July 25 after completing her five-year term. Samajwadi Party, which is an outside supporters of UPA, had on Tuesday said that it would favour an eminent Muslim candidate for the top post.
