Will reach out to old BJP colleagues for support: Prez nominee Sinha

Yashwant Sinha, the common opposition candidate for the presidential election, on Monday said he would reach out to his former colleagues in the BJP seeking their support.

Addressing a press conference here, Sinha described the candidature of his rival NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu, a tribal, as part of "politics of symbolism" and insisted that he would contest the poll on the track record of the Modi government with regard to the welfare of backward communities.

Sinha, who filed his nomination for the July 18 election, hit out at the BJP saying that the saffron party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi lacked internal democracy.

"The BJP I was part of had internal democracy, the current BJP lacks internal democracy, he said.

Sinha served as finance minister and external affairs minister in the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He had resigned from the BJP in 2018 and joined the Trinamool Congress in 2021. He quit the Trinamool Congress before his candidature was announced on June 21.

Sinha said he had reached out to Prime Minister Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for support.

The veteran leader questioned the track record of the Modi government with regard to the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

"The current President also belongs to a particular community. Does it mean that the community has benefited," Sinha asked.

Sinha said the presidential election was a battle between the ideology of absolute power and that of freedom.