Mumbai, July 12: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal on Tuesday cleared the air amid reports of Shiv Sena backing NDA nominee Draupadi Murmu ahead of presidential elections. Bhujbal denied Sena’s support to anyone regarding the Presidential elections.
“Till now, Shiv Sena hasn’t” Bhujbal said while interacting with media. It is clear that Shiv Sena is definitely working towards strengthening the party,” he said. “When such a large number of people leave the party, then efforts have to be made at the ground level and Uddhav Thackeray is doing so,” Bhujbal was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Meanwhile, after the Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray called a meeting on July 11 for presidential elections, party leader Sanjay Raut earlier today confirmed that there were discussions about Murmu at the meeting and said that supporting Murmu does not mean supporting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He also highlighted that the party had goodwill toward the opposition’s Presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha. The opposition should remain alive. We also have goodwill towards the Opposition'” he added.
Yesterday, most of the Sena MPs made a strong case for supporting Droupadi Murmu and not for Yashwant Sinha, the opposition’s nominee.
The voting for the presidential election will take place on July 18 and the counting of votes will take place on July 21.While Droupadi Murmu is the presidential candidate of the BJP-led NDA, Yashwant Sinha is the candidate of the opposition parties.
The Shiv Sena had seen a revolt last month which led to the resignation of Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister of the MVA government which also had Congress and NCP. Eknath Shinde, who led the revolt in Shiv Sena, took oath as Chief Minister on June 30. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis took an oath as Deputy Chief Minister.
