Opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha on Monday filed his nomination papers for the July 18 election, with a host of leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah accompanying him.

Significantly, TRS leader K T Rama Rao, the son of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was also present when Sinha filed his papers.

However, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha was not represented as Jharkhand’s ruling party is yet to decide on whom to support in the presidential poll.

Sinha handed over four sets of nomination papers to Rajya Sabha Secretary General P C Mody, who is the returning officer for the presidential election.

After filing the nomination papers, Sinha paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi and B R Ambedkar at their statues inside Parliament complex.

Sinha, a former bureaucrat and a union minister during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, was decided as the joint candidate for the presidential election on June 21 at a meeting of several opposition leaders.

He is likely to launch his campaign from June 28 from Chennai in Tamil Nadu and will cover the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka as well during his first round of campaigning.

Top opposition leaders including NCP supremo Pawar, Congress leaders Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Jairam Ramesh and Rajasthan Chief minister Ashok Gehlot, TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee and Saugata Roy, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, DMK’s Tiruchi Siva and A Raja, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief minister Farooq Abdullah, CPI-M’ Sitaram Yechury and CPI’s D Raja, were also present.

Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Misa Bharti, Revolutionary Socialist Party’s N K Premchandran and Indian Union Muslim League’s Mohammed Bashir and NCP’s Praful Patel were also present.
NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu filed her nomination papers last week.