- BR Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash is slated to be Left parties’ pick for President
- Former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar met Congress President Sonia Gandhi at her residence
- Opposition parties are scheduled to meet on 22 June to decide on a consensus candidate for president’s post
Meira Kumar Meets Sonia Gandhi
Probable contender of the Opposition and former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar met Party President Sonia Gandhi at her residence in Delhi on Friday.
The development came shortly after the news of Prakash Ambedkar emerging as the top pick of Left parties for the presidential election came out.
Prakash Ambedkar Likely to be Left’s President Pick
Prakash Ambedkar, a former MP and grandson of BR Ambedkar, is emerging as the top pick of Left parties for the presidential election.
CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury is holding informal consultations with the Congress and non-NDA parties to know their opinion about his candidature, sources in Left parties said on Wednesday.
"We are thinking of Prakash Ambedkar. If the Congress and other opposition parties agree, we will put him up (for the 17 July presidential election)," a source in the Left camp told PTI.
The Left parties are firm that the opposition must put up its candidate against NDA nominee Ram Nath Kovind, though they are well aware that the numbers are loaded against them, the sources said.
Senior leaders of non-NDA parties, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, NCP president Sharad Pawar and Yechury, are slated to meet on 21 June to discuss the issue.
Earlier it was learned that besides Ambedkar, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, ex-Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, CPI national secretary D Raja and retired diplomat Gopal Krishna Gandhi are being considered as probable contenders by Opposition parties.
Who is Prakash Ambedkar?
A lawyer by profession, Ambedkar got his law degree from Siddhartha Law College in Mumbai. The college is run by the People’s Education Society, which was founded by BR Ambedkar.
Sixty-three-year-old Prakash is a former Lok Sabha member from Akola in Maharashtra and is the leader of Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh. He was also Rajya Sabha MP between 1990-1996.
Ambedkar has been leading a movement of landless farmers in Maharashtra since 1982. He also serves as the Chief Editor of ‘Prabuddha Bharata’, a monthly journal of the Ramakrishna order.
Apart from being a leader in the Vidharba movement for carving out a separate state from Maharashtra and standing up for the rights of Dalits, SCs and STs, Ambedkar spoke against the 2016 flogging of the four Dalit youths in Una, Gujarat.
He questioned the need for gau rakshaks when there were already police forces in states to handle the law and order situation.
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