Jaipur: Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) on Thursday decided to keep its presidential candidate choice a secret. BTP has two MLAs in the assembly and doesn’t want to disclose its choice between NDA-backed Droupadi Murmu and UPA’s Yashwant Sinha. Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) and CPM with three and two MLAs, respectively, are yet to take a call on the presidential elections.
“Our party is small with interest in a limited area of the country. The presidential elections are governed by the BJP and the Opposition parties are with limited say. It has been decided that we would not like to become a party with any power bloc in the country. Our party has decided that going by the spirit of the elections, we will keep our voting secret,” said Vela Ram Ghogra, president of BTP Rajasthan.
Responding to a question on being approached by either the BJP or the Congress for casting votes in favour of their candidates, Ghogra said, “Both the parties have the tradition of influencing the smaller parties. Our stand is clear that we will not stand with them in the polls.” BTP has gone with the Congress in the Rajya Sabha elections. In the recent polls, both the MLAs — Rajkumar Roat (Chorasi) and Ramprasad Dindor (Sagwara) — defied party whip and voted in favour of Congress candidates.
TOI repeatedly called RLP national chief Hanuman Beniwal, but didn’t get his response. RLP MLA and Beniwal’s younger brother Narayan Beniwal told TOI, “The decision will be taken by the party chief considering the party’s interest and voters.” A source said RLP is likely to go with the NDA candidate Murmu. “Beniwal has neither met UPA’s Sinha nor NDA’s Murmu during their visits to Jaipur. The party will announce its support on July 15-17,” the source added.
CPI’s Girdharilal from Dungargarh and Balwan Poonia from Bhadra will announce their support on Friday. They are likely to go with the NDA candidate.
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