Presidential election ; BJP claims non-NDA support
Source: The Sangai Express / UNI
New Delhi, July 08 2017:
After their blitzkrieg in the North Eastern States to garner votes for NDA’s Presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind, senior BJP leaders will be heading to central, western and northern India on the campaign trail for the July 17 polls.
According to sources, the party has been able to obtain support of some AITC MLAs and also some of the Congress MLAs in the North Eastern States .
The BJP is in power in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur out of the the seven States in the North East.
In Nagaland, NDA partner NPF is in power.
Meghalaya and Mizoram are ruled by Congress and the Left Front is in power in Tripura .
The party held several meetings in Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura and evoked a ”very good response” as a senior party functionary said .
BJP leaders are now fanning out to other parts of the country .
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is MP from Madhya Pradesh, is today in the State, and Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley will be heading for Chhattisgarh tomorrow.
On July 11, Mr Kovind will visit Gujarat, and Jharkhand, the next day.
On July 13, Minister for Information and Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu along with party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav will go to Shimla and Jaipur .
”Our 65 per cent vote is confirmed and it may go to 70 per cent as well,” a senior party functionary said .
Kovind, who is a Dalit, is pitted against another Dalit leader Meira Kumar, who is a joint nominee of the Opposition.
Meanwhile, the party would soon be getting to the business of declaring its nominee for the Vice-Presidential polls.
The Opposition too had so far not nominated its candidate for the polls .
The last date for filing nominations for Vice-Presidential polls is July 18.When asked whether, they would be trying for a consensus for the Vice-President’s poll, a senior BJP leader laughed out at the question, quipping, ”We are always for consensus.”
The Opposition has been miffed with the BJP over what they called their unilateral declaration of Presidential nominee.
However, the BJP leaders have been dismissing their charge, saying, ”Who stopped them from proposing their name” .