It was Pranab Mukherjee’s day of course, but if there was any other person to grab attention at the swearing in ceremony in parliament’s central hall it was West Bengal Chief Mamata Banerjee.
The mercurial Trinamool Congress chief had initially opposed Mukherjee’s candidature for the nation’s highest office, but extended her support to him just 24 hours before the voting on July 19.
Banerjee walked up to Home Minister P. Chidambaram to greet him. She also interacted with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad. That’s when Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, seated in the front row, got up and moved towards the duo to chat with her.
Mulayam Yadav had, along with Banerjee, initially proposed that former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former speaker Somnath Chatterjee or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh be made president. However, he later ditched the Trinamool chief to go with the UPA nominee Pranab.
IANS