Former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha, who has been fielded collectively by 17 Opposition parties including Congress, CPM, Trinamul Congress and others for the presidential post is neither humiliated nor embarrassed for Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s controversial U-turn on supporting his rival Droupadi Murmu, BJP-led NDA’s nominee for presidency.

Triggering controversy, Mamata who had taken leading role in nominating her party leader Sinha as a candidate for the presidential elections, scheduled on 18 July, on Friday had said that she would have considered backing Murmu, a tribal and SC nominee for presidency as a consensus candidate had the BJP consulted her before the Opposition unanimously decided to field Sinha.

While responding to a WhatsApp message sent to him, the former finance minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet during 1998-2002, said that he is neither humiliated nor embarrassed.

He had quit BJP in 2018 and accepted the Trinamul Congress flag three years later. He resigned from the Trinamul Congress after the Opposition nominated him for the President’s post.

Apparently, he supported Mamata’s comments, “If the BJP had earlier said they would nominate a tribal woman for presidential election, all the Opposition parties could have sat together and discussed in favour of a consensus. I have a sentiment towards women anyway.”

“This is exactly what I have been saying all along. It was the responsibility of the ruling party to forge consensus and compromise on the issue. They did not do so because they do not believe in consensus but in confrontation and humiliating parties in the Opposition,” Sinha reacted to The Statesman through a WhatsApp message.

Mamata’s statements prompted derision from the Congress and the Left parties, both accusing the Trinamul Congress chairperson of a secret entente with the BJP. The saffron party mocked what it called Mamata’s U-turn allegedly for the sake of tribal votes.

Some political observers in the city felt that Mamata’s 180-degree shift of backing Murmu was highly humiliating to Sinha what he never experienced before in his long political career.