Kolkata: Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress will abstain from voting in the Presidential and Vice Presidential elections, scheduled for July 19 and August 7 respectively.

Both UPA and NDA candidates for the polls had appealed to Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her support.

Mamata Banerjee was earlier opposed UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee's candidature and was in favour of APJ Abdul Kalam in the President poll and Gopal Krishna Gandhi in the Vice President poll. However, both of them refused to contest.

Even after Kalam refused Mamata did not pledge her support to Mukherjee. Moreover, she did not back NDA candidate PA Sangma too.

In the Vice President poll, too, Mamata had till now not made it clear if her party would support UPA candidate Hamid Ansari or NDA candidate Jaswant Singh. Mamata has now decided not to support either of them and skip voting.

In an embarrassment for UPA earlier, Mamata had even announced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as one of her favoured candidates for the post of the President. However, once the UPA made it clear that there was no question of the Prime Minister contesting the Presidential election, Mamata stuck to Kalam.

She had even claimed Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's support, who later snubbed her and announced his party's support for UPA's Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee.

The voting for the President poll will take place on July 19 and the counting is on July 22. The voting for the Vice President poll will take place on August 7 and the counting will take place on the same day.