Race for President: CM lobbies hard for Sangma

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday stepped up campaign for former Speaker P A Sangma’s candidature for President by describing him as a distinguished tribal leader of the country. “He is a tribal leader, a distinguished tribal leader. My party supports it that  for the first time in the history of our Republic, a tribal leader becomes the seniormost person of this Republic, Rashtrapati (President) of India,” he said replying to a question on Sangma’s chances. A quarter of the State’s population is tribal and their population is huge in the country, Naveen said before leaving for New Delhi en route to his eight-day visit to the United Kingdom. After BJD declared its support for Sangma, support came for him within hours from AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, he said. “Since then as you can see the hon’ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaaji, has been speaking to several senior leaders of political parties,” Naveen said. The Chief Minister said he was fortunate to have Sangma as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha when he was MP for the first time in 1997. “Sangma had close attachment to my late father Biju Patnaik,” he said. Sangma’s daughter Agatha, who is a Union Minister, had visited Bhubaneswar and held discussions with Naveen. The Chief Minister is also likely to meet Sangma in New Delhi. Naveen was, however, unsparing in his criticism of the UPA-II which completed three years in office. “You wanted to know what I thought of the UPA, the Central Government’s performance in the last three years. They seem to be in a policy paralysis, economic paralysis, which has impacted on the whole of India,” he said. “I will not say what I think of the political paralysis. You, my friends in the media, know it very well,” he said. Naveen, who has been at loggerheads with the Centre over the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), proposed tax on miners and changes in the MMDR Bill-2011, blamed the Centre’s wrong policies for the  plight of the people, particularly the poor. Holding the Centre responsible for the price rise and hike in petroleum products, Naveen said, “My Government has cut tax on LPG and kerosene to protect the poor from the agonies of the price rise.”