RSS leader mocks Opposition over Yashwant Sinha's nomination for president

Senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar on Tuesday ridiculed opposition parties for picking Yashwant Sinha as their presidential candidate, saying he was with the BJP which emerged from the Jan Sangh.

He said the opposition parties selected Sinha "in a hurry" because they could not find anybody from their own camp.

"It would have been better had the the government and the opposition parties arrived at a consensus on the (next) President of the country. But the opposition parties have decided to nominate their joint candidate," Kumar, who is RSS national executive member, said in an audio message.

"And the person whom they have picked as their joint candidate for the presidential election is one who traces his roots in BJP, Jan Sangh," he said.

Several major opposition parties, including the Congress, the NCP and the TMC, picked former Sinha, former Union minister, as their candidate for the July 18 presidential polls.

Opposition leaders, who gathered at the Parliament annexe for the meeting convened by NCP chief Sharad Pawar to decide on a common candidate for the much discussed presidential election, unanimously agreed on Sinha's name.

The veteran politician, who has stepped aside from the Trinamool Congress will file his nomination papers on June 27.

The BJP named Droupadi Murmu, a tribal leader of the party from Odisha, as the ruling NDA's candidate for the presidential polls.

BJP president J P Nadda announced her name at a press conference following a meeting of the party's parliamentary board, which included Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders.

Murmu (64), a former Jharkhand governor, will be the first person from Odisha and the first tribal woman to occupy the top constitutional post if she is elected, a strong possibility as numbers are stacked in favour of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).