West Bengal chief minister Mamatha Benerji is holding a meeting of the opposition parties in Delhi on June 15. She had already arrived in the national capital to make sure all those who were invited were attending the meeting.

She had sent invitations to Telangana chief minister KCR, Kerala chief minister Pinayi Vijayan, Odisha chief minister Navin Patnaik, Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin, Maharastra chief minister Uddhav Thackery, Jharkhand chief minister Hemanth Soren, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejrival and Panjab Chief Minister Bhagavanth Mann, besides others.

NCP chief Shard Pawar, Congress president Sonia Gandhi were also invited for the meeting. While Pawar had already reached Delhi, Sonia Gandhi is learnt to have delegated three leaders from the Congress to attend the meeting.

The meeting is basically to discuss the possibilities of fielding a common candidate in the Presidential election. The opposition is meeting on the day when the Election Commission is issuing notification for the Presidential election.

These parties put together have 29.45 per cent votes, while the ruling BJP led NDA has 48.67 per cent votes. The Congress-led UPA has 24.02 votes and Mamatha Benerji is not part of the UPA. If she joins, the vote percentage goes to 29.45. If TRS also backs the candidate, this team’s voting strength would go up to 31.75 per cent.

A candidate would require 51 per cent votes to be declared elected. While BJP-led NDA has 48.67 per cent votes, the Congress-led UPA has 24.02 per cent and if Mamatha’s efforts show positive results, their candidate would get around 31 per cent to 32 percent votes, too far to win the election.

Perhaps, this is the reason why Sharad Pawar had declined to be the common candidate. There are 27.31 per cent votes from the parties which do not belong to either the NDA or the UPA. Interestingly, the Trinamool Congress, TRS, CPI, CPM, AAP are part of this 27.31 per cent. It is a big question how Mamatha would be able to convince the parties and field a candidate knowing fully well that they are too far to get the magic figure.