The Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, will meet this evening to strategise a response. 

The meeting will be the first formal deliberation of the top leaders of the ruling party, a day after Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav, came up with the Prime Minister's name as one of their choices in the Presidential race. 

The chiefs of Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party said they could also be agreeable on the candidature of former president APJ Abdul Kalam or former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee.  Mukherjee, who met Gandhi this morning, will be present at the meeting of the Congress Core Group which has senior leaders like A K Antony, P Chidambaram and Ahmad Patel, Political Secretary to Gandhi, as members.

The party needs the support of both TMC and SP to ensure that its candidate
wins. Other allies such as DMK, NCP, RLD and NC, have already
indicated their support for Mukherjee.