Pranab Mukherjee is the president of India. He could not become prime minister, even caretaker prime minister, home minister and missed becoming president in 2007. There was suspense about his candidature. When during Congress Working Committee meeting he proposed authorising Congress president to nominate candidates for president and vice president he seemed out of equation. Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav said they did not want him or Hamid Ansari and proposed A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Manmohan Singh and Somnath Chatterjee. It seemed all over for Pranab Mukherjee but Mulayam Singh Yadav turned around and supported him. JD(U) and Shiv Sena supported Pranab Mukherjee. There was split in Left Front. CPI(M) supported him. CPI abstained. At the end Mamata Banerjee also supported him.
Tag: mulayam singh yadav
Pranab versus Purno
Pranab Mukherjee and Purno Albert Sangma are the two candidates for president of India. When UPA announced Pranab as its candidate some journalists said he will get 82% of votes, Purno will get 6%. NDA and Left Front had not decided on candidates, CPI had said it will oppose Congress candidate, many other parties had not declared their support to any candidate. The journalists added NDA and Left Front votes to Pranab. Instead of being objective they behaved like Pranab’s cheerleaders.
Presidential candidates
On 12/6/2012 Election Commission announced the dates for presidential election. Strange are the ways of Election Commission. They announce elections for Legislative Assemblies six months before the expiry of the term and club various state elections together though announcement before 40 days is enough and clubbing elections together is not necessary and right. In case of presidential election the law provides for announcement 60 days before the expiry of the term and Election Commission announced the dates 43 days before the expiry of the term. Soon there will be vacancy of vice president but Election Commission has not clubbed together elections of president and vice president. S. Y. Qureshi was CEC when 60 days were left i.e., on 25/5/2012. He should have announced the election but did not do so and retired on 10/6/2012. Perhaps he was waiting for Congress to announce its candidate. On 11/6/2012 V. S. Sampath became CEC and next day at 5.30 p.m. he announced the election.
Politicians and phone tapping
On 23/4/2010 Outlook reported that phones of four politicians were tapped. They were Digvijay Singh, Nitish Kumar, Prakash Karat and Sharad Pawar. The period stretched from February 2007 to April 2010. Vinod Mehta, editor of Outlook, claimed his sources were impeccable.
It is difficult to believe that over four years and two months phones of only four politicians were tapped. Either the sources did not give full information to Vinod Mehta or Vinod Mehta had held back some information.