The campaign by the UNPA, a grouping of eight regional parties, for a consensus on a second term for President A P J Abdul Kalam ran into a roadblock today with the UPA-Left rejecting the proposal and leaders like Lalu Prasad and Sitaram Yechury even advising Kalam to demit office “gracefully”.

Though the UPA remains concerned about public perception supporting a second term for Kalam, the ruling combine is confident of the numbers in favour of its presidential nominee Pratibha Patil.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Congress leaders that they should not go by “SMS polls” on TV channels. At a meeting convened by Sonia Gandhi at her residence to introduce Patil to party leaders, Mukherjee said those voting in the presidential election belonged to political parties and UPA campaign managers were aware of the numbers.

With the UPA not blinking, it is now up to Kalam to decide if he wants to run for a second term with the combined support of NDA and UNPA. Leaders of the NDA and UNPA, who met at Atal Behari Vajpayee’s house, said that if Kalam was willing to take on Patil, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat would withdraw from the race. UNPA leaders will meet Kalam again tomorrow.

UNPA’s hopes of creating fissures within the ruling alliance over Kalam were dashed as all UPA partners rejected the proposal. Close on the heels of Sonia Gandhi rebuffing the UNPA, CPI(M) and CPI followed suit and made it clear that there would be no rethinking on Patil's candidature.

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