Race for Raisina hills heats up

New Delhi: The race for the Raisina hills heats up on Tuesday, as Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam singh yadav has suggested three new names for President Post. Congress is totally shocked with this development, as it never thinks that Mulayam-Mamata duo will reject Pranab Mukherjee’s candidature for President Post. Now, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is holding a series of discussion with her colleagues and senior leaders of UPA alliance partners to build consensus over a presidential candidate acceptable to all on Thursday.
Rejecting Sonia’s choices for the Presidential candidate – Pranab Mukherjee and Hamid Ansari – Mamata and Mulayam proposed three names which included Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former president APJ Abdul Kalam and former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
Sources in the Congress say that Kalam cannot be their first choice and that Pranab Mukherjee’s name cannot be ruled out yet.
Sources say Congress President Sonia Gandhi is reluctant to let go of Pranab and took his name as the Presidential candidate as she didn’t want to be seen as opposing him. But after being snubbed by Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Congress plans to dig their heels in and plan to checkmate the duo.  Congress is confident of a consensus on Pranab. The Congress sources also said that the Samajwadi Party had agreed on Pranab earlier and efforts were now on to convince its leadership. It seems that the Samajwadi Party is also open for talks with the Congress.
Meanwhile, Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister AK Antony met Sonia Gandhi on Thursday morning. A Congress Core Committee meeting is also expected on Thursday evening.