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"I have thanked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for having thought of me and suggested to the UPA partners my name for the Vice-Presidential election," he said, a day after the Congress-led alliance announced Vice-President Hamid Ansari as its candidate for a second term.
Asked whether any other leader had requested him to enter the fray, Gandhi told PTI, "Some people approached me, but I said thank you. I will not." He said he had also congratulated Ansari yesterday after his name was announced by the UPA.
With the UPA, SP and BSP backing the candidature of 75-year-old Ansari, a career diplomat and former Vice- Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, his second term in the high office is a certainty.
Trinamool Congress` Rajya Sabha member Kunal Ghosh had said yesterday that his party leader and Railway Minister Mukul Roy had at the UPA meeting proposed the names of Gandhi and Krishna Bose, a former Parliamentarian and wife of Sishir Bose, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose`s nephew.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had yesterday telephoned Mamata Banerjee to seek her party`s support for Ansari and she had reportedly said she would take a final call in two or three days.