Meira Kumar is opposition candidate

India's mainstream opposition parties yesterday decided to field former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar against ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance candidate Ram Nath Kovind in the July 17 election for the top constitutional post of the country's president, setting the stage for a battle between two members of most backward castes.

The decision to put up 72-year-old Meira Kumar, a five-time Member of Parliament who was elected unopposed as the first woman Speaker of Lok Sabha and served from 2009 to 2014, was taken at a meeting of opposition parties which was attended by leaders of 17 parties including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

The opposition named its candidate two days after BJP and its allies chose 71-year-old Ram Nath Kovind, a hardcore BJP man and a Dalit, setting at rest speculation that NDA has put the opposition camp in a fix as it could find it difficult to oppose Kovind and accept him as a consensus nominee.

However, cracks appeared in the opposition camp after opposition Janata Dal (United)'s surprise decision yesterday to back Kovind who is also a lawyer.

A contest for the country's top constitutional post is now clearly on the anvil as a majority in the opposition sees it as an "ideological battle" that has to be fought.