Yashwant Sinha not best candidate for President's post: CPI(M) MP Ranjan Bhattacharya

Ranjan Bhattacharya said that some other candidate could have been chosen who would have been more acceptable

Yashwant Sinha is not the "best candidate" for the post of President but it has to be accepted for the sake of opposition unity, CPI(M)'s lone MP from West Bengal Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said on June 24.

Expressing his reservation about the candidature of Mr. Sinha, who has been in the BJP and the Trinamool Congress, Mr. Bhattacharya said that some other candidate could have been chosen who would have been more acceptable.

"I am unhappy with the candidate selection," he said, hastening to add that it does not mean that the decision to fight the presidential election was wrong.

Several opposition parties, including the Congress, TMC and the Left, have come together to put up Mr. Sinha as their candidate for the election against the BJP-led NDA's Droupadi Murmu.

Mr. Bhattacharya, a Rajya Sabha MP, said that for the sake of larger opposition unity, Mr. Sinha's candidature had to be accepted, but it would have been good to have a "better" candidate.

"He (Sinha) is not the best candidate," Mr. Bhattacharya, a former advocate general of Tripura and an ex-mayor of Kolkata, said.

He said that the Left parties, however, cannot be a divider of the opposition unity and have to fight unitedly.