If things go right, veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi could become the next President of India.
RSS heavyweight Devendra Swaroop has supported Joshi’s bid for presidentship. Joshi has already launched his bid for the Rashtrapati Bhavan, lobbying the RSS and the BJP leadership vigorously for the party’s presidential nomination.
On May 22, Joshi had also met PM Modi over dinner at the 7 Race Course Road and held talks in the same context. After meeting PM, Joshi met Bhagwat at RSS headquarters in Nagpur earlier this month. Since then, he is in constant talks with the BJP and RSS leaders.
On June 6 and June 7, he met some RSS leaders in Mumbai. Sources said that PM Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah have taken this decision, in an attempt to honour Joshi, by nominating him for the country’s top post.
Ram Bahadur Rai, chairman of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, is also supporting Joshi. Current President Pranab Mukherjee’s term expires next year.
Murli Manohar Joshi is a MP from Kanpur. He was the BJP president between 1991 and 1993 and later became the HRD Minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee led NDA government.
Other high-profile names that are doing the rounds for India’s next president are- parliamentary leader Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar.
