05-06-2007, 05:13 PM
Most horrible man is a front runner, What a tragedy!!!
<b>Somnath emerging as frontrunner for next president</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary AB Bardhan was more categorical. In an interview on TV channel CNN-IBN on Sunday, he said <b>he would welcome Chatterjee as president, but would not propose his name for the post.</b>
He too clarified that the Left Front would not support President APJ Abdul Kalam for a second term or Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat for the post of president.
.....................
According to a CPI-M leader, the party is keen to draw the BJP into a contest - a view shared by the Congress - because "it will be a very good opportunity to see who stands where".
In the Congress, members of the core committee including party president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh, Defence Minister AK Antony and Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel reportedly met sometime back and deliberated on this issue.
<b>According to Congress's calculations, the UPA-Left combine has a clear lead over the NDA alliance with a surplus of 80,000 votes in the electoral college for the presidential elections, excluding the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, perceived as neutrals by the two major combines.</b>
The prospect of approaching smaller parties outside the UPA, like former prime minister HD Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and erstwhile UPA partner Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) to further consolidate UPA flanks, also came up during the discussions in the Congress.
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<b>Somnath emerging as frontrunner for next president</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary AB Bardhan was more categorical. In an interview on TV channel CNN-IBN on Sunday, he said <b>he would welcome Chatterjee as president, but would not propose his name for the post.</b>
He too clarified that the Left Front would not support President APJ Abdul Kalam for a second term or Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat for the post of president.
.....................
According to a CPI-M leader, the party is keen to draw the BJP into a contest - a view shared by the Congress - because "it will be a very good opportunity to see who stands where".
In the Congress, members of the core committee including party president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh, Defence Minister AK Antony and Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel reportedly met sometime back and deliberated on this issue.
<b>According to Congress's calculations, the UPA-Left combine has a clear lead over the NDA alliance with a surplus of 80,000 votes in the electoral college for the presidential elections, excluding the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, perceived as neutrals by the two major combines.</b>
The prospect of approaching smaller parties outside the UPA, like former prime minister HD Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and erstwhile UPA partner Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) to further consolidate UPA flanks, also came up during the discussions in the Congress.
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