Fight between two ideologies & not individuals: Opposition on Presidential poll

Leaders of several opposition parties on Monday said the presidential election is a fight between two ideologies and not about individuals as their candidate Yashwant Sinha filed his nomination for the poll.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the real fight is between two ideologies - the hatred of the RSS on the one side and the compassion of all opposition parties on the other.

The NDA has fielded Droupadi Murmu for the presidential poll.

"We are all unitedly supporting Yashwant Sinha ji. Of course, we are supporting the individual, but the real fight is between two ideologies. One ideology of RSS - anger, hatred and the other of compassion of all the opposition parties who are standing together," he said.

He said the entire opposition is standing with Sinha.

TMC leader Saugata Roy said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has extended her full support to Sinha, who is the joint opposition candidate.

"It is not a fight between two individuals only, it is a fight between two ideologies - between communalism and secularism and authoritarianism versus democracy. And I think under the circumstances, Yashwant Sinha is the best candidate," Roy said while noting that he is a former IAS officer, former union minister of Finance and External Affairs.

"On a person-to-person basis, Sinha is far better. All opposition parties are fully supporting him. The Congress, DMK, socialist parties and Left parties are supporting him. I think it is a rainbow-coloured coalition of best values," the TMC leader said.

CPI-M's Sitaram Yechury said it is not a question of identity politics. "We respect Droupadi Murmu ji, but it is contest of ideologies," he noted.

Several top opposition leaders accompanied Sinha as he filed his nomination papers for the July 18 polls.