While the Congress attempts to bring opposition parties together in what it is pegging as a battle of ideologies, party sources also said that it will have an "open mind" if Prime Minister Narendra Modi consults it for a consensus candidate acceptable to all parties for the next President of India. The Congress is also open, the sources said, to supporting a second term for President Pranab Mukherjee, who has said he will consider one only if the government asks him.
