EC has the dates, Sonia the name

Express news service : New Delhi, Tue Jun 12 2012, 21:52 hrs
The process to elect the next President formally kicked off today with the Election Commission announcing July 19 as the date of polling for the successor to President Pratibha Patil in Rashtrapati Bhawan.

While a formal notification will be issued on June 16, the Presidential poll schedule will have June 30 as the last date for filing of nomination and withdrawal of nomination by July 4. Counting of votes will be on July 22.

The announcement, made by new chief election commissioner V S Sampath, came this evening even as political parties intensified moves on the issue: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who heads the second largest party in the UPA, reached here following an invite from Congress president Sonia Gandhi for talks tomorrow.

At the same time, the NCP formally ruled out any possibility of deviating from the collective UPA strategy on the Presidential poll distancing itself from its senior leader PA Sangma, who has already thrown his hat into the ring with the support of BJD and AIADMK. Sources indicated that the UPA is likely to meet on the issue in the next few days.

The poll schedule now means that the UPA leadership will have an elbow room of about a week at the end of the month in the event that it is not able to announce the name of its nominee in the next four days. An impression that it could do so gained yesterday when, as reported by The Indian Express, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee — the hot favourite for the top job — suddenly called off a visit to Kabul on June 14 to attend a regional conference.