No name given by Cong, UPA on Prez nominee: Left

New Delhi, Jun 12: The Left parties today maintained that they have received no 'formal name' from the UPA so far for the President's post, indicating their unhappiness over suggestions that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had finalised the UPA nominee to succeed Dr A P J Abdul Kalam.

Without naming the External Affairs Minister, the Left leaders made it clear that they favoured a ''winnable and formidable'' candidate like Mr Pranab Mukherjee to take on probable ''Independent'' candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who could split the UPA votes.

''No names have been conveyed to us regarding the preferance of the Congress and the UPA about their Presidential candidate,'' Left leaders Prakash Karat and A B Bardhan said after the conclusion of a more than 75-minute-long meeting of the Left parties.

Mr Karat and Mr Bardhan, General Secretaries of the CPI(M) and the CPI respectively, said the meeting reiterated that they stood by their stand that the Presidential candidate should be a ''man of apolitical and impeccable secular credentials''.

CPI National Secretary D Raja, RSP leader and Rajya Sabha member Abani Roy and Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas also attended the meeting.

The Left leaders parried all questions relating to media reports about Ms Gandhi's preferance for Home Minister Shivraj Patil for the coveted post, saying ''this is all being written in the press.

We have discussed no individual names.''

UNI