Talking to newsmen in Patna early on Wednesday he charged the Congress with indulging in give and take with its allies. This was evident in the delay over announcement of its presidential candidate. Nitish’s statement came before the later development in Delhi. Mamata in the evening supported the candidature of Manmohan Singh, A P J Abdul Kalam and Somnath Chatterjee for the post of president. Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, too holds the same view.

Nitish said that to stay in power Congress was playing all sorts of politics. The Bihar chief minister said that it would not be appropriate for him or others to air views on presidential polls till clarity emerged on the name of the candidate. Interestingly, in the last week of April his party, Janata Dal (United)’s spokesman, Shivanand Tiwary, had while talking to media said that there was no problem with either Pranab Mukherjee or Hamid Ansari as the presidential candidate.