'Mamata should rationally support Sangma in Prez poll'

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj on Friday said that Trinamool Congress President and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should rationally extend support to BJP-backed candidate, P A Sangma for the presidential polls.

"Mamata's candidate was former President APJ Abdul Kalam who has refused to contest the Presidential polls so rationally, she should have supported Sangma, who is a capable leader from the Northeast," Swaraj told reporters after courting arrest as part of the BJP's nation-wide protest on the issue or rising prices of food items and petrol.

"Sangma will also speak to Mamata on the issue soon," the senior BJP leader said.

When asked about BJP's opinion on Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's capability as Presidential candidate, she said, "If Congress wanted to project him as a consensus candidate then its President Sonia Gandhi should have taken into confidence Opposition parties as was done by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the case of Kalam."

"The pre-condition of consensus is pre-consultation and not the other way round," she said while blaming Congress leadership for the current situation on the issue of Presidential election.

Denying that NDA was disintegrating on the issue of Presidential election, Swaraj said," it is a mature coalition and there is no question of it disintegrating on the issue of Presidential polls.