Indian Presidential Election 2022: Oppn chooses ex-BJP leader Yashwant Sinha as candidate

Yashwant Sinha, the former union minister in the BJP government who walked away from the party, was unanimously chosen as the common candidate of opposition parties for the presidential election in India. Sinha emerged as the consensus candidate of 13 opposition parties, including the Congress, the TMC and the Samajwadi Party, which met on Tuesday (June 21) to discuss the issue.

In a statement, the opposition wrote: "We appeal to BJP, and its allies to support Yashwant Sinha as prez so we can have a worthy 'Rashtrapati' elected unopposed."

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind's term will end on July 24 this year and the election for the next President of India will be held on July 18. The counting of votes will take place on July 21 and the new president will take oath on July 25.

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Notification for the presidential election will be issued on June 15 and the last day of filing a nomination will be June 29. The papers will be scrutinised on June 30. The last day to withdraw the nomination papers will be July 2.

Opposition leaders were gathered at the Parliament annexe for the meeting convened by NCP chief Sharad Pawar to decide on a consensus candidate for the presidential election.

Sinha's name came up after Pawar, Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah opted out of the race.

The parties that attended the meeting included the Congress, NCP, TMC, CPI, CPI-M, Samajwadi Party, National Conference, AIMIM, RJD and AIUDF.

Congress' Mallikarjun Kharge and Jairam Ramesh, TMC's Abhishek Banerjee, DMK's Tiruchi Siva, CPI-M's Sitaram Yechury and CPI's D Raja were among those who participated in the meeting.

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