Murmu’s name for Prez poll puts BJD in fix

Bhubaneswar, June 22(Reporters Today Bureau): The announcement of former Odisha Minister and former Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu will put the ruling Biju Janata Dal in a fix on supporting the NDA in the presidential election or not.

BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik during one of the his visits to Delhi had told a television channel that his party’s support to any candidate in the presidential election will depend on the name of the candidate.

Droupadi Murmu’s name is unlikely to be ‘unacceptable’ to the BJD as she belong to the State, a woman and overall a tribal face. She will be the first tribal in the country who will be elected to the post for the first time.

Now, the Biju Janata Dal will be in a dilemma. It has always harped on women empowerment and development of the tribal community in State.

On the other hand, the NDA led by Narendra Modi has played a masterstroke virtually pushing the combined oppostition candidate Yashwant Sinha backwards. The number between the NDA and combined opposition is almost same. Hence West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was trying to rope in all oppostition parties in the country to come together to oppose the NDA candidate. Her meetings in the past two weeks to decide on a candidate to oppose the NDA nominee had suffered the first jolt in the first meeting when Sharad Pawar had declined the offer to contest the election as Opposition’s nominee. Then the name of Farooq Abdullah cropped up. This created division in the opposition as not all those who attended the meeting agreed to the proposal mainly on the ground of his rants against India after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir. Later the senior Abdullah pulled out of the race.

Finally, the opposition claimed that the name of Yaswant Sinha was acceptable to all the parties which attended the meeting convened by Mamata Banerjee.

The BJD supremo is on a foreign tour and retuning only toward the end of the month. The situation will be clear then whether or not BJD wants Murmu as the next President of the country.