Sonia to host dinner in honour of Pratibha Patil

New Delhi, July 17: The UPA-Left candidate for the August 10 Vice-Presidential election is likely to be discussed at a dinner being hosted by Congress President Sonia Gandhi here tonight ahead of the July 19 presidential poll.

Ms Gandhi, who is also the Chairperson of the ruling UPA, has invited all the MPs from the Congress Party, its allies in the UPA, Left parties and the Bahujan Samaj Party for the dinner at Hotel Ashok.

Though the dinner is essentially to facilitate an interaction between UPA-Left Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil with the MPs, the leaders are likely to use the opportunity to discuss the choice of a candidate for the post of Vice-President.

"It is also a dinner in honour of Ms Patil who is sure to be the winner in the race to Rashtrapathi Bhavan," a top Congress leader told UNI here today.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and top leaders of the ruling coalition and other supporting parties will be among 400 invitees to the 'buffet' dinner at the Convention Hall at the ITDC-owned hotel.

Though the dinner was proposed to be held on the lawns in the hotel, the security agencies had reportedly ruled out the idea. It was originally planned to host the dinner on the lawns at the official 10 Janpath residence of Ms Gandhi, but it had to be changed due to possible rains.

The decision of the "Third Front" to abstain from voting in the Presidential poll having furthered the winning chances of Ms Patil, the UPA-Left leaders feel that there is no need for working out a last-ditch strategy for the July 19 elections.

Therefore, they are likely to use the dinner to discuss and zero in on a candidate for the Vice Presidential poll.

There were indications that the UPA-Left nominee for the post of Vice President would be the choice of the four Left parties. Since the Presidential nominee was from the Congress, the biggest constituent of the ruling coalition, the Left Parties had genuinely claimed the post of the Vice-President for their nominees by virtue of they being the second biggest group supporting the UPA government.

The CPI(M) and CPI had already made it clear that their Vice-Presidential candidate would be an apolitical person with secular outlook. Several names have been doing the rounds. But all the names were those from the minority community.

There were reports that the Congress might propose the name of a Muslim in the event of the Left parties failing to arrive at a candidate in keeping with its own prescription. In such an event, the name of Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz is likely to emerge as a consensus candidate, sources said adding that " This is mainly because of the fact that he hails from Kashmir".

UNI