Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh on Saturday termed the announcement of the presidential candidates earlier this week by Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee without even consulting the proposed candidates as “joke of the year”.
In an exclusive interview to this newspaper, Mr Singh reacted strongly to Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s charge that the Congress had “botched” the presidential election and said he wonders how she went ahead and announced NCP leader P.A. Sangma as her candidate knowing fully-well that she and Orissa chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal do not have the numbers.
Asked whether the smooth approval of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s candidature for the President’s post reflected the managerial skills of the UPA, Mr Singh said that the credit for this goes to the deft political handling of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. When asked who would be the next finance minister and the new leader of the Lok Sabha, Mr Singh replied, “Can’t say at the moment but there is no shortage of capable people in the UPA and Congress.”
When his attention was drawn to senior BJP leader L.K. Advani, who had compared the 2012 presidential election with the 1969 election, Mr Singh said, “I am sorry to say with all due respects to Advaniji that he is totally out of sync with today’s ground realities. There is no comparison whatsoever to 1969.”
When asked to comment on West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s belligerent posture on the issue of the entire UPA backing a unanimous candidate for the President’s post and the distance she chose to maintain with the Congress, he said, “Now that Pranabda has asked for her support and magnanimously called her his sister and when her candidate (former President) Kalam Saheb most probably is not willing to contest, she should extend her support to Pranab Mukherjee.”