Left to bargain with UPA over presidential candidate

New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left parties Wednesday appeared to be set for a bargain with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to finalise a candidate for the post of the county’s first citizen.

Leaders of the four-party Left Front indicated that they would seek the UPA and its allies’ support for one of the two top posts – the president or the vice president.


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“We have not finalised on the candidate. It will be done in the process of discussions with the UPA and its allies,” CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters here after a meeting at the party headquarters.

“The candidate will be finalised in a few days,” said Karat, who was flanked by other left parties’ leaders.

However, he added: “The candidate would be put up by all of us. The candidate will be a person of political stature, who has the requisite stature and exposure, who has knowledge in constitutional matters and who can balance between the executive and the judiciary.”

Karat said the Left would support only a person having strong secular credentials.

According to Left sources, the leaders will demand that the UPA should support their candidate either for the post of the president or vice president.

“As we have been extending a crucial support to this government, Left can bargain for a constitutional post,” said one of the leaders who attended the meeting.

But sources added the scope of a Left candidate for the president’s post has faded with the Congress expressing keenness to put up its own candidate.

The presidential election is due in July.

Indo-Asian News Service

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