Presidential election: Sushma Swaraj tweets 2013 Lok Sabha video, says 'This is how Meira Kumar treated Leader of Opposition'

On June 22, Congress leader Meira Kumar was chosen as Opposition's joint candidate against NDA's Ram Nath Kovind for Presidential election.

Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday took on Meira Kumar and posted a video of a 2013 Lok Sabha speech in which the Opposition's presidential candidate was seen repeatedly interrupting the then Leader of the Opposition.

The senior BJP leader captioned the video on her Twitter handle as - 'This is how Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar treated the Leader of Opposition'. 

Swaraj also tweeted a link to a newspaper report with the headline 'Speaker interrupted Sushma 60 times in 6-minute speech'.

This is how Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar treated the Leader of Opposition - https://t.co/hxHWHaJ4D9 — Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 25, 2017

Swaraj was the LoP in the Lower House in 2013 and Kumar was the then Lok Sabha speaker during the Congress-led UPA government.

In the video, the EAM is seen tearing into the UPA government and calling it the most corrupt since Independence. 

On the other hand, Kumar is repeatedly heard saying 'thank you' and 'all right' to Swaraj, indicating that the MP had to cut short her address.

Congress leader Kumar has been chosen as the Opposition's joint candidate against NDA's Ram Nath Kovind in a 'Dalit vs Dalit' Presidential battle.

Both Kovind and Kumar are aged 72.

The decision to field Kumar was taken at a meeting of non-NDA parties with the leaders unanimously endorsing the name of the diplomat-turned-politician.

Leaders of 17 Opposition parties were present at the meeting, which included Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh and senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge and Ahmed Patel, besides Sharad Pawar and Lalu Prasad.

Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, DMK's Kanimozhi and National Conference's Omar Abdullah also attended.

Though Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and SP's Akhilesh Yadav, who were present at the last Opposition meeting held on May 26, were not present their representatives were there.

While Derek O' Brien represented the Trinamool, the SP sent Ramgopal Yadav and the BSP Satish Chandra Misra.

Other parties represented at the meeting included JD(S), RSP, JMM, Kerala Congress, IUML and the AIUDF of Assam.

 JD(U), which has decided to back Kovind, skipped the meeting. But RLD chief Ajit Singh attended, making up for the numbers.

(With Agency inputs)