NEW DELHI: With speculation that Sharad Pawar could become President of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), former cabinet minister and senior Congress leader Q Chidambaram said on Sunday that the position is not that of a prime minister, noting that even Pawar will not want to be declared president of the alliance, as there is no such thing.
“I don’t think that even Mr. Sharad Pawar wants to be declared president of the UPA … When these parties meet, the natural person extend the invitation and the natural person to preside over the meeting will be the leader of the majority party; we are not selecting a prime minister, “Chidambaram told ANI in an exclusive interaction.
“There is no president of the UPA,” he added.
Underlining the importance of calling a meeting of the UPA parties, the former finance minister said that if the party calls an alliance meeting, “it is natural for a congressional leader to preside over the meeting.”
Furthermore, Chidambaram stressed the importance of UPA and its allies working together to strengthen the alliance across the country.
“Some of the parties may take the initiative to call the UPA meeting and Congress will attend, but if Congress is calling a meeting it is natural that one of its own leaders will preside over the meeting,” Chidambaram told ANI.
Chidambaram mentioned that among the UPA allies, Congress had the largest banking force in parliament.
“The UPA is made up of about nine or ten parties and the largest party in the alliance is the Congress party. Congress has about 95 or 100 members in the Lok Sabha and Rajya sabha“he told ANI.
Recently, Congressional ally in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena, in his spokesperson, Saamna, praised Sharad Pawar for his personality and said that “Sharad Pawar should become the next president of the United Progressive Alliance.”
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