Miss Mamata Banerjee, president of the Trinamool Congress, by floating the nomination of Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the National Democratic Alliance's choice for the post of next President of India has caused the leaders of the NDA considerable embarrassment. She has told the media about her suggestion.
She told the media that she had suggested that first the NDA should approach the President A P J Abdul Kalam to run for the post and in the event he declined NDA should field Former Prime Minister Vajpayee as the replacement candidate. The suggestion more than anyone else embrassed Vajpayee.
As some in the party thought that the Brahmin from Uttar Pradesh had engineered his name through Banerjee. "Unless there is a legal ban that former prime minister cannot run for the post of the President, Vajpayeeji could well end up creating history," a senior BJP leader said told rediff.com.
"It would not be proper for Vajpayeeji to contest and lose. Any other nominee would feel that he contested and lost," Vijay Kumar Malhotra, deputy leader of BJP said in an informal chat with this correspondent.
In the absence of consensus Vajpayee is unlikely to risk his reputation. While the UP and left parties together have more than five lakh votes, NDA has four and a half lakh votes. But if Mayavati decides to support Vajpayee then Mulayam Singh Yadav would like to throw in his lot with the secular parties. Mayavati has 61,000 votes.
