Pranab rubs it in: No miracles, all numbers

UPA presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said he does not believe in miracles when it comes to presidential polls.

"After all it (presidential election) is a question of numbers," Mukherjee, who is expected to win easily, said replying to a query from the media here. "I don't believe in miracles." This came days after his opponent P A Sangma recently said that a miracle might help him win the polls.

The odds are in favour of Mukherjee but that did not stop him from appealing again to parties who were yet to make their support public — basically aiming at UPA's sulking ally Trinamool Congress.

Formally launching his campaign for the top post, Mukherjee met senior alliance partner and DMK supremo M Karunanidhi who first suggested his name to the Congress high command.

He landed at the Air Force base at Tambaram, just outside city limits, in the evening to a boisterous and colourful welcome organised by the DMK. Mukherjee's former cabinet colleagues Home Minister P Chidambaram and minister in charge of the PMO V Narayanasamy were present along with DMK treasurer and Karunanidhi's son M K Stalin — who formally extended the invitation to launch the campaign from Chennai— to welcome him.

Among other notable leaders present were DMK leaders TR Baalu and A Raja.

After meeting Karunanidhi at the CIT Colony residence of his daughter Kanimozhi, Mukherjee recalled his decades-old association with the DMK chief and said this was the reason for choosing Chennai to formally launch his campaign. Karunanidhi said Mukherjee's victory was a "foregone conclusion".

Pranab a 'super power' in UPA govt: Thackeray
Mumbai: Having declared his party's support for Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential poll, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Saturday described him as "super power" in the government and said the Opposition should be happy that with his election the government would become a "lame duck". In an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana, Thackeray said neither Mukherjee, nor the other candidate in the race — BJP-backed P A Sangma — could win the election without "borrowed support".

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