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No support until BJP proposes a name for Prez: Yechury

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Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury said on Friday that the Bharatiya Janata Party reaching out to opposition parties on the presidential election was ‘more like a PR exercise’, after a meeting with Union ministers Rajnath Singh and M Venkaiah Naidu.

“They (BJP leaders) did not propose any name,” Yechury said, reiterating his party’s stand that a candidate with ‘impeccable secular credentials’ should be the next president.

 

Singh and Naidu, who are part of a BJP panel to work out a consensus on the presidential nominee, met Yechury as part of its efforts to reach out to the opposition.

Stepping out from the nearly 30-minute meeting, Yechury told mediapersons that the BJP panel would meet them again.

Asked about the government’s efforts to develop a consensus on the presidential candidate, he said there has to be some name (proposed) to arrive at a consensus.

Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena has said it would recommend eminent agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan’s name for the highest post if the Bharatiya Janata Party was not ready for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief’s candidature.

Sena, the BJP’s oldest ally, which has been consistently pushing for Mohan Bhagwat as the next president, changed its stand after the RSS chief recently expressed his disinclination to become constitutional head of the country.

Bhagwat, 66, recently said he is not interested in the president’s post.

The Sena had earlier said the nation needs a person who can seal its fate as a ‘Hindu Rashtra.’

“Today, not only in Maharashtra, but farmers across the country are in distress. They have, in several parts of the country, hit the streets in protest. If the government accepts Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, farmers will immensely benefit,” Sena MP Sanjay Raut told reporters in Mumbai.

The cultivators, who recently went on a strike against Maharashtra government, had demanded implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan committee report, along with a blanket loan waiver.

“All his recommendations should be accepted and implemented immediately,” Raut said.

“Before the Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in-principle agreed to implement all recommendations of the Swaminathan committee report. Even after coming to power, he had assured of fulfilling his promise,” he said.

“Therefore an eminent person like him is fit to hold the President’s post. Uddhavji will recommend his name to Amit Shah when he calls on him at ‘Matoshree’ (Thackeray’s residence) on Sunday,” Raut said.

ANI

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