Lalu pitches for Hamid Ansari for president

RJD, which is extending support to UPA from outside on Monday pitched for Vice President Hamid Ansari as the next President of the country saying “he is the natural claimant to the highest post”.

“He (Ansari) is the natural claimant to the highest post…He should be promoted from Vice President to President,” RJD President Lalu Prasad told PTI.

Prasad said though his party, with only handful of Parliamentarians, does not have a crucial role in the election of President, it would like to see Ansari in the top post.

RJD has four MPs in Lok Sabha, who include Prasad himself, and 2 in Rajya Sabha after Jabir Husain and Rajniti Prasad, who had hit the headlines by tearing a copy of Lokpal Bill in the winter session last year, retired on March 30.

RJD has 22 MLAs in the 243-member Bihar assembly and is the main opposition there. The party has 7 legislators in Jharkhand assembly.

Lalu Prasad said he has not held any consulation either with Congress or any other party on the name of Ansari for Presidential poll. But if Congress and UPA allies support the candidature of Ansari, RJD would go with them, he added.

—PTI—-