New Delhi: After declaring support for UPa's Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee, the Trinamool Congress is now likely to support the UPA's Vice Presidential candidate Hamid Ansari too. TMC Rajya Sabha MP KD Singh is also set to represent the party at the lunch being hosted by Sonia Gandhi for UPA allies on Wednesday afternoon.
Hamid Ansari filed his nomination for the Vice President poll on Wednesday, However, the Trinamool Congress was not present during his nomination.
After several weeks of drama Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday announced that her party would vote for Pranab Mukherjee in presidential election.
Announcing her party's decision to take part in presidential poll, Mamata, who had bitterly opposed Mukherjee's candidature, said that she had no "option but to support Pranab". She also added that she had not spoken to Pranab for almost eight months.
Mamata's change of heart came after the Prime Minister called her up on Tuesday, after which she decided to not waste the TMC's vote by abstaining. Mamata had wanted APJ Abdul Kalam as the Presidential candidate and Gopal Gandhi as the Vice Presidential candidate, both of whom refused to contest.
However, the party maintained that Mamata's decision was no U-turn. Talking to IBN18 Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Derek O'Brien said that Mamata has done no U-turn and the party's differences with the government stay intact.
"Let me be very clear, our views and differences on some major issues which affect the common man be it FDI in retail, be it petrol price hike, be it SEZ, be it pension, all this remain because this is in our manifesto. This is the right decision, we should look ahead. We have issues with the government but to use the term U-turn, we are absolutely cruising along in Bengal, there's a lot of great work being done so there is no U-turn happening," he said.
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