See who all came together to choose Meira Kumar as Opposition Presidential Candidate

The meeting was attended by a galaxy of leaders, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, other Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge and Ahmed Patel, NCP's Sharad Pawar, RJD's Lalu Prasad, Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, DMK's Kanimozhi and the National Conference's Omar Abdullah.

The Opposition today unanimously decided to field Meira Kumar (not in pic), a Dalit, as its joint candidate for the presidential election against NDA’s dalit activist Ram Nath Kovind, with 17 parties supporting the former Lok Sabha speaker’s candidature.  

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, said Kumar had been “selected unanimously”. All the 17 parties had proposed her name, he said.

The meeting was attended by a galaxy of leaders, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, other Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge and Ahmed Patel, NCP's Sharad Pawar, RJD's Lalu Prasad, Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, DMK's Kanimozhi and the National Conference's Omar Abdullah.

Though Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee, BSP’s Mayawati and SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, who were present at the last opposition meeting held on May 26, were not present today, their representatives attended the meet. Derek O’ Brien represented the Trinamool, Ramgopal Yadav, the SP and Satish Chandra Misra, the BSP.

“We have 17 opposition leaders present here and all of us have decided to jointly field Meira Kumar as a candidate for the forthcoming election for the President of India,” Congress president Sonia Gandhi announced after the meeting.

Asked to comment on Nitish Kumar’s JD-U, which is supporting Kovind and stayed out of meeting, she said, “We do hope that other opposition parties join us.” Gandhi added that she was “not upset with anybody”.

After the meeting Lalu Prasad of the RJD said he would meet Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and “appeal to him again to rethink” his party’s decision to support the NDA nominee, which he called a “historic blunder”. He also said there was no threat to the Bihar government, a coalition of the JD(U), RJD and Congress.

BSP’s Satish Chandra Misra said his party leader Mayawati had earlier said if there was a “better dalit candidate” (than Kovind), the person should be fielded by the opposition. “Meira Kumar is a better candidate,” Misra quoted the BSP leader and former UP chief minister as saying.

The brief meeting of the opposition parties started with an address by Gandhi where she stressed the need for opposition unity in putting up a joint candidate.