President poll: Congress rejects TMC-SP choices

The Congress on Thursday took on the Trinamool Congress-Samajwadi Party combine and rejected their choices for the President's post. In the first official reaction after the Mamata-Mulayam snub to the Congress's choice, party spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi said, "Manmohan Singh will remain the Prime Minister till 2014."

Dwivedi also said that the other two names - former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee and former President APJ Abdul Kalam - were not acceptable to them while adding that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Vice-President Hamid Ansari were the party's preferred choices.

Lashing out at Mamata, Dwivedi said, "Names come up during discussions and there is a sanctity to close door talks. Mamata should not have announced the details of the meeting in public."

The Congress seems to be strategising to checkmate the Mamata Banerjee-Mulayam Singh Yadav duo by going in for Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's candidature for the President's post. Sonia Gandhi met Pranab on Thursday at her residence. She also met Defence Minister AK Antony, Home Minister P Chidambaram and DMK leader TR Baalu on Thursday.

Sources say that the Congress will name its candidate in within the next 24 hours. A Congress Core Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 5:30 pm.

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