Maya message to UPA: We are with you

Support for a UPA candidate in the Presidential polls is shoring up even as NCP leader PA Sangma — the ADMK and BJD’s nominee — has been canvassing for himself.

Support for a UPA candidate in the Presidential polls is shoring up even as NCP leader PA Sangma — the ADMK and BJD’s nominee — has been canvassing for himself.

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The latest assurance for support seems to have come from BSP chief Mayawati, although she skipped the dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday for the third anniversary celebrations of the UPA-2 government.

After the dinner got over, Mayawati sent her key political emissary Satish Chandra Mishra to meet a senior UPA minister.

Mishra held a half-an-hour meeting with the minister at the latter's bungalow and is believed to have conveyed that BSP will support the UPA candidate. He also reportedly said that his party is expecting formal talks with the Congress on the Presidential poll.

A day after Mayawati's support was informally conveyed to the Congress, RJD chief Lalu on Wednesday announced that his party would support UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's preferred candidate as the next President.

“RJD does not have adequate number of MPs in Parliament and has thus decided to support the UPA candidate for the post,” he told reporters in Patna.

Even as the UPA will try to build the widest-possible consensus over its Presidential candidate, the party is keen to see Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) especially on board. SP and BSP, along with an united UPA, can fetch 52% votes to ensure a smooth sail for the Congress nominee.

Meanwhile, the four Left parties also kept a window open for supporting the UPA’s candidate.

After their meeting to discuss the Presidential poll among other issues, the Left parties asked the government to find a candidate who would enjoy “widest possible acceptance”.

While Forward Block's Debabrat Biswas claimed no names were discussed in the meeting, CPI's AB Bardhan said, “We will soon decide. Let UPA come up with a name which has wider acceptability.”