Bhubaneswar, May 3: CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who arrived here today on a two-day visit, is likely to meet Odisha chief minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik tomorrow to seek his party's support in the upcoming presidential election.
The BJD's support is crucial for the outcome of the presidential polls as neither the BJP-led NDA nor the Opposition command a clear majority. The BJD has 20 members in the Lok Sabha and seven in the Rajya Sabha. The party enjoys an absolute majority with 117 legislators in the 147-member Odisha Assembly.
The CPM and several regional parties have mooted a candidate to take on the BJP's candidate in selecting a successor to President Pranab Mukherjee.
Naveen, who is yet to announce his decision, told the media yesterday that the BJD would wait till the candidates were declared before taking a stand. The BJD's dilemma stems from the fact that the party often asserted its stance of maintaining equal distance from both the Congress and the BJP.
Yechury, who addressed a seminar on Challenges before India Today in the city in this evening, said the secular structure of India faced threats from communal forces. He called upon all secular and democratic forces to unite to counter that threat.
The veteran Left leader said: "All secular forces of the country should be united. I will appeal to chief minister Naveen Patnaik to extend his support to the candidate fielded by secular forces."
The CPM leader, himself a Rajya Sabha member, said: "The country needs a secular candidate for President. We have already discussed this with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, JDU president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar."
"The BJD is a secular party and I'm sure Naveen Patnaik and his party will be positive about our request to support a secular candidate for President," he said.
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee also met Naveen on April 20 during her visit to the state. Though the two leaders had told the media that the meeting was nothing more than a courtesy call, there were speculations about the two leaders discussing a non-BJP front and possible candidates for the polls.
Mamata's visit to Odisha came close on the heels of the BJP's national executive meeting here on April 15-16.
Though Naveen had evaded queries on political issues, Mamata gave a call to all regional parties to work together to strengthen federalism in the country.
"The regional parties are always in touch with each other. We want these parties should continue and grow," she had said, before adding "regional parties are capable of checking communal forces".
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and JDU leader Sharad Yadav had also met Naveen on March 7 during their visit to Odisha to attend the funeral of former Lok Sabha speaker and veteran socialist leader Rabi Ray. The meeting had also fuelled speculations of a coming together of regional forces.
