A former Bihar governor, Ram Nath Kovind hails from Uttar Pradesh while Meira Kumar, who earlier served as Lok Sabha Speaker, is the daughter of former deputy prime minister Jagjivan Ram. (File photo) A former Bihar governor, Ram Nath Kovind hails from Uttar Pradesh while Meira Kumar, who earlier served as Lok Sabha Speaker, is the daughter of former deputy prime minister Jagjivan Ram. While Kumar has support of 17 opposition parties, Kovind is set to get nearly 70 per cent of the electoral college votes. Sonia acknowledged this in her speech on Sunday, at a meeting of non-NDA parties with Meira Kumar and the Opposition’s vice-presidential candidate, Gopalkrishna Gandhi. Though both the BJP and Congress highlighted the caste of their candidates, Meira Kumar had disapproved of projecting it as a “Dalit versus Dalit” fight.

Source: Indian Express July 16, 2017 18:30 UTC