So Pranab Mukherjee appears set to be the next President with his candidature announced today by the ruling UPA and endorsed swiftly by supporting parties SP and BSP amid indications that he will gather more support ahead.

The 77-year-old vetran Congress leader, currently Finance Minister with 43 years of parliamentary experience, was named by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi at a meeting of the leaders of the Congress and the alliance partners, including DMK, RLD, NCP, NC and IUML. 

Within minutes, SP, which had joined hands with TMC leader Mamata Banerjee to propose the name of A P J Abdul Kalam for the post, broke away and pledged support to Mukherjee, leaving the West Bengal Chief Minister totally isolated.

This was followed by another major Uttar Pradesh party BSP, whose supremo Mayawati also extended her support, which will take Mukherjee close to the required vote value of 5.49 lakh in an electoral college consisting of MPs and MLAs with a total vote value of 10.98 lakh. Even counting out TMC, which has a vote value of 48,000, Mukherjee is short of just about 26,000 vote value which is expected to be made up by other parties that may include the Left.