Yashwant Sinha is Oppn choice for Prez

By Our Special Correspondent

For the opposition, Mr Sinha's choice is on a circuit path. After two rounds of talks and several informal meetings, Mr Sinha, an 84-year-old bureaucrat-turned-politician, has been announced as the opposition's joint candidate for the upcoming presidential election.

Former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha has been chosen as the Opposition's joint candidate for the Presidential election. Sinha will file his nomination on June 27.

Sinha, who briefly served as finance minister in the Chandrasekhar government and the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime, has always maintained a series of uprisings.

He boycotted the VP Singh government swearing-in ceremony in 1989 and boycotted everything against then BJP president Nitin Gadkari in 2013 on allegations of corruption when the Maharashtra leader was preparing to come to power for a second term.

He was given key responsibilities in Bihar, including as Leader of the Opposition and later won the Lok Sabha elections from Hazaribagh in 1998. Vajpayee led his party to form the first general government 13 days after his failure in 1996 to resign. To gather a majority in the House.

He remained Finance Minister till 2002 and then made External Affairs Minister. With the BJP-led NDA having a particular numerical advantage over the opposition, Sinha's chances look more like a formal battle. But he can count on getting the most out of it.