A day after Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar expressed his party's stand to elect a non-political person as the next president of India, Samajwadi Party (SP) has named the former President APJ Abdul Kalam for the top post.
Welcoming Pawar's statement to elect a non-political person as the country's next president, SP leader Shahid Siddiqui told NDTV that "President should be a great man. In 2002, Mulayam Singh had forwarded the name of Abdul Kalam for the Presidentship. We don't have any problem if Mr Kalam becomes President."
Earlier speaking to reporter, Pawar said on Sunday that a non-political person would be the ideal choice as the next president.
Speaking about his party's stand not to field its own candidate for the election, Pawar said, "We have only 16 MPs and we know our limitations."
However, the Congress Party is planning to propose its own candidate for the upcoming presidential election. According to reports, the party is likely to foreword its senior leader and Union Minister of Defence A K Antony as their presidential candidate.
Earlier, leaders of SP and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam met on Thursday. It's also reported that SP, AIADMK and Trinamool Congress may foreword APJ Abdul Kalam as their consensus candidate for the Presidential poll which is to be held in June 2012.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad expressed that a consensus candidate would be needed since any of political party has a majority in the electoral college.
In the electoral college of upcoming Presidential election 2012, Congress-led United Progressive Alliance have only 40 percent vote share and the Congress on it's own has only 31 per cent of the total votes. While, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance have 30 percent.
Abdul Kalam, who served as the 11th President of India, refused to contest in the 2007 presidential election.
