Opposition parties will meet in Delhi tomorrow to decide on their presidential nominee (file photo)
The Opposition move to field a joint candidate to take on the ruling BJP's nominee for President began in April, after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and urged her to lead the initiative. Mr Kumar's decision to back Ram Nath Kovind, picked by the Narendra Modi government for its candidate for President, has thus come as a big blow for opposition unity.
Mr Kumar's party the Janata Dal United officially announced the decision this evening, just a day before opposition parties meet in Delhi to discuss who they will field. It is a dwindling team, with the BJP's decision to pick Mr Kovind, a Dalit, putting leaders like Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Mr Kumar in a bind. Mayawati draws huge support from Dalits and has indicated that she will find it difficult to oppose a leader from the community.
Nitish Kumar shares a good rapport with Mr Kovind and has praised him for being "impartial" as the Governor of Bihar. He would also not like to upset his crucial "Mahadalit" support base by opposing Mr Kovind, sources said. The chief minister reportedly informed Sonia Gandhi and his partner Lalu Yadav of his decision on Monday soon after Mr Kovind's nomination was announced.
The JDU's KC Tyagi said the party would skip tomorrow's meeting, though he stressed that this would have "no impact on opposition unity." The JDU, he said, decided to extend support to Ram Nath Kovind "because his tenure was excellent and he performed his duties with dignity... He never went on a confrontation course with the state government."
Lalu Yadav has confirmed that he is attending tomorrow's opposition meeting in Delhi and will "abide by the decision taken there." Mayawati's BSP will attend too and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party has said he will send a representative and will make his party's stand clear there; his father and former party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has described Mr Kovind as a "wonderful choice" for President.
Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party has said nothing yet, but has sided before with the BJP in crunch situations. Only the Congress, the Left, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and Lalu Yadav have so far made it clear that they want to field a candidate and ensure an election for President. Together these parties have less than 25 per cent vote in the Electoral College for the Presidential election; the BJP and its allies, with the support of regional parties now have over 60 per cent of the vote. The Left has, however, said that they must take on the BJP in a "battle of ideologies."
Ahead of tomorrow's meeting, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar met Mrs Gandhi on Wednesday evening, raising speculation that she could be the opposition's candidate for presidential polls. Like Mr Kovind, Ms Kumar is a Dalit and was the first woman speaker of the Lok Sabha.
With the effort to field a joint candidate for President the opposition was also seen to be testing ground for a larger partnership to take on the BJP in the national election in 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek a second term. That seemed to come undone, as speculation began again on whether Nitish Kumar is growing closer to one-time ally, the BJP.
The Congress is upset, sources said, and some party leaders alleged that they saw signs of a possible BJP-Nitish Kumar patch-up in the longer run.
Senior JDU leader Sharad Yadav hastened to clarify today that, "Our alliance is intact and we will continue opposing the NDA," referring to the party's partners in Bihar, the Congress and Lalu Yadav's RJD.
In 2012, Nitish Kumar was a part of the BJP-led national alliance but supported the Congress-led government's candidate Pranab Mukherjee. The BJP's oldest ally, Shiv Sena, has supported the opposite side for the last two presidential elections, though this time Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has pledged support for Mr Kovind.