My fight of ideology begins now, says Oppn presidential candidate Meira Kumar

New Delhi: Opposition presidential candidate Meira Kumar on Wednesday filed her nomination in the presence of top Congress and other Opposition leaders and said it marked the beginning of her “fight of ideology”.

Kumar, 72, who filed her papers with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by her side, will launch her campaign from Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat on June 30.

Accompanying the former Lok Sabha speaker as she filed her nomination in Parliament House were a host of opposition leaders, including NCP’s Sharad Pawar and CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury.

“For us, it is a battle of ideologies, principles and truth and we will fight it,” Mrs Gandhi said.

Gandhi and other top Congress and opposition leaders were among those who proposed and seconded Kumar’s nomination. “From today, our fight of ideology has started. This ideology is based on democratic values, inclusiveness in society, freedom of the press and individuals, end of poverty, transparency and destruction of caste structure,” Ms Kumar said after filing her papers.

“There is one path which takes us towards narrow-mindedness and no concern for the poor, while the other path leads to uplift of Dalits, poor, downtrodden, women and labour and people of all religions,” she said.