Venkaiah Naidu meets Sharad Pawar, Chandrababu Naidu over Presidential election

Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu and discussed the issue of Presidential election.

Chandrababu said that his party would stand by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision. While, Pawar said he would be in Delhi in the next couple of days for further talks.

So far, six parties have been registered which are- Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) and AINC (NR).

After Naidu returns to Delhi tomorrow, formal consultations will begin in separate meetings with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.

Meetings with leaders of other parties will be planned further.

Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and M. Venkaiah Naidu will meet Sonia and Yechury tomorrow to discuss matters related to next month's presidential election.

Both have already spoken to NCP's Praful Patel and Bahujan Samaj Party's Satish Mishra.

Recently, Sonia met various leaders from opposition parties to give a tough fight to the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government's candidate for the post of President.

Earlier this week, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah had formed a three-member committee, consisting of Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley for consultations with the opposition over likely candidates for president.

The Election Commission has said that the last date for the filing of nomination is June 28.

The Election will take place on July 17 and counting of votes will take place on July 20.

President Pranab Mukherjee will demit office on July 24.

The new president will be elected by means of an Electoral College comprising of elected members of parliament, legislative assemblies of state and union territories of Delhi and Puducherry.