Who is Yashwant Sinha? All you need to know about Opposition presidential candidate

New Delhi, Jun 21: Several major opposition parties, including the Congress, the NCP and the TMC, on Tuesday picked former Union minister Yashwant Sinha as their candidate for the July 18 presidential polls.

Opposition leaders, who gathered at the Parliament annexe for the meeting convened by NCP chief Sharad Pawar to decide on a common candidate for the much discussed presidential election, unanimously agreed on Sinha's name.

The veteran politician, who has "stepped aside" from the Trinamool Congress and was earlier with the BJP, will file his nomination papers on June 27.

Born on 6 November 1937, Yashwant Sinha is a former Indian administrator, politician and a former Minister of Finance (1990-1991 under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and March 1998 - July 2002 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and Minister of External Affairs (July 2002 - May 2004).

He was a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party before he quit the party on 21 April 2018.

He joined All India Trinamool Congress on 13 March 2021 and he left All India Trinamool Congress on 21 June 2022 for being the joint opposition Presidential Candidate of India against BJP on Indian Presidential Election 2022.

In 2015, he was awarded Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, the highest civilian distinction of France.

Yashwant Sinha had joined active politics as a member of the Janata Party after resigning from the IAS in 1984. He had been appointed the party's all-India general secretary in 1986 and was elected a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1988. When the Janata Dal was formed in 1989, Sinha, a founding member, was appointed the party's general secretary. He later joined the BJP and held important portfolios in the Vajpayee government.

Sinha's name came up after Pawar, Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah declined the opposition offer to be their joint candidate for the top post. Their names were proposed during the meetings of opposition parties on the issue.

According to Left party sources, Sinha, who was vice president of the TMC, resigned from the party after the Congress and Left parties wanted him to be an independent candidate and not associated with any one party.

The presidential election would be held on July 18 to elect a successor to incumbent Ram Nath Kovind and the result would be out on July 21. The BJP parliamentary meeting will meet later on Tuesday to discuss the BJP-led NDA's choices for the new president.