Shiv Sena endorses Ram Nath Kovind's candidacy for President

The presidential election, if required, will be held on 17 July.

He met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah after he arrived here on Monday evening from Patna following the BJP's decision to project him as the ruling NDA candidate as the Head of the State.

Following the announcement, Prime Minister Modi reached out to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Dr. He is a good parliamentarian."Refuting Congress and other opposition parties" assertion that NDA didn't build consensus on the name of presidential nominee, he said the central government doesn't want to involve in any controversy by commenting on it."We built consensus on his name".

A cursory analysis of Google trends, that dipstick measure of the perturbations of people's minds, points to a moderate spike, over the past 24 hours, in searches for Ram Nath Kovind, the NDA's candidate for President. Manmohan Singh to seek the grand old party's support for Kovind. "The Shiv Sena has always kept away from such vote-bank politics", Thackeray said on Monday night at a rally to mark the party's 51st foundation day celebrations. "But now that they have named a Dalit leader, the equation has changed altogether, one of the sources added".

Joining the critics of NDA's Presidential nominee, Shiv Sena said it would not extend its support if the Centre is eyeing a vote bank by nominating a Dalit face for the upcoming President polls. He said the BSP supremo is opposing becasue Kovind is associated with RSS ideology. "Just because he was the leader of Dalit Morcha of BJP they have made him the candidate", Mamata said. But instead of coming to us with the proposal they announced the candidate.

"If they have declared Kovind's name for getting Dalit votes, then we are not interested".

It is learnt that Pranab Mukherjee took the oath of the office of the President of India on July 25, 2012.

Another aspect of Kovind's candidature merits mention: the excessive emphasis, both in media commentary and in the political calculations that underlie his nomination, on his Dalit identity.