Does the opposition finally have a Presidential candidate? Yashwant Sinha's ‘time to step aside' tweet before the big meet

Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha on Tuesday said he will "step aside" from the TMC to work for the larger national cause of Opposition unity, amid indications that he is being considered as the Opposition's joint candidate for the presidential elections.

“I am grateful to Mamataji for the honour and prestige she bestowed on me in the TMC. Now a time has come when for a larger national cause I must step aside from the party to work for greater opposition unity. I am sure she approves of the step,” he tweeted.



Analysts said putting up Sinha, a former Minister and close confidante of late Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who still enjoys a lot of prestige in political circles, was a strategic move to underline the differences in functioning styles of the BJP government under Vajpayee and that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sinha, a former IAS who joined politics in 1984 to join the Janata Dal, was finance minister in the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government in 1990-91. He later joined the BJP to be a Minister for Finance and later Minister for External Affairs in the Vajpayee government which ruled between 1989-2004.

With three names proposed by the opposition parties as candidates for the forthcoming Presidential poll rejecting the offer, Trinamool Congress, with support from a couple of other political parties, might project someone from within the party in the in the opposition meeting convened by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar later this afternoon.

According to multiple sources, in all probability, Trinamool will propose the name of the party's national vice president and former Union minister Yashwant Sinha. Instead of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her nephew and Trinamool's national General Secretary will attend today's meet.

In today's meeting, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has also been invited. "NCP chief Sharad Pawar invited Barrister Asaduddin Owaisi for a meeting to discuss the upcoming presidential elections. Mr Owaisi thanked Mr Pawar for the kind invitation and has deputed Aurangabad MP Mr Imtiaz jaleel to represent AIMIM in the meeting," the AIMIM said in a statement.