After three prominent political figures — West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar, and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah — declined the Opposition’s invitation to become the common Presidential candidate for the upcoming polls on July 18, former Union minister Yashwant Sinha has been zeroed in by the joint Opposition to stand for the Presidential elections. TMC vice-president Mr. Sinha, resigned from all party positions on Tuesday morning, hours before the meeting of Opposition parties to declare their comnon Presidential candidate.
The post-BJP era
After being one of the tallest figures in the BJP for nearly two and a half decades, Mr. Sinha quit the saffron party in 2018 alleging that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre was undermining democratic institutions. Declaring that he would be severing all ties with the BJP and “taking sanyas from party politics”, the senior leader had announced his quest to “save democracy”. Being a vocal critic of NDA policies such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the years to follow, Mr. Sinha launched a 3,000 km Gandhi Peace March demanding the withdrawal of the CAA.
