.India to elect first female president after bitter campaign
NEW DELHI - A muckraking run-off to presidential elections in India looks set to end with the appointment of the country’s first female president on July 25.
Pratibha Patil, 72, currently governor of northern Rajasthan state, is the nominee of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and simple arithmetic in a complex election process predicts she will score a substantial win.
Patil, a lawyer from Maharshtra state, has never lost an election since she first contested for the state assembly in 1962, according to published reports. She won a beauty contest the same year. Patil has held important portfolios of health, education and urban development in the Maharashtra government but has never held a federal post.
Since her nomination, Patil has been at the centre of a storm of allegations and charges by the opposition and the media including nepotism, sheltering kinsmen accused of murder and abetting suicide, corruption and fraud.
According to one of the more serious charges, rural banks she established were used to give cheap loans to relatives. When those banks were liquidated by the authorities for malpractice or were abandoned, thousands were left paupers, the Indian Express newspaper and India Today magazine reported.
Patil has not helped her case by making ill-considered remarks like her communion with the spirit of a dead guru, who said she would occupy a position of great responsibility, or that Muslim women embraced the veil to protect themselves from Mughal invaders.
She also reportedly said on one occasion that sterilization should be made compulsory for people with hereditary diseases. Patil, if elected, will replace the highly popular APJ Abdul Kalam, 75, an eminent nuclear scientist, who never loses a chance to speak of his dreams of empowering youth to achieve a more egalitarian and prosperous India.
The post of president in India is largely titular, with all executive powers vested in the prime minister. But the president is also seen as the face and, as protector of the constitution, the conscience of India.
He, or she, has an important role to play when general elections throw up hung parliaments, state governments are dismissed and other crises of democracy.
Judgment, fairness and detachment are seen as necessary qualities for the president and Patil is being questioned on all three counts.
Former presidents have largely been elected by consensus and analysts say the current mudslinging is the downside of India’s increasingly partisan politics and assertive media.
When the UPA came up with possible presidential nominees, the left parties, whose support is crucial for the alliance in a fractured parliament, rejected each and every one.
Congress Party president and UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi finally came up with Patil, who is known to be a Ghandi-family loyalist.
Then followed the newspaper exposes and the opposition brickbats. Opinion polls run by leading newspapers indicated she was the least popular presidential candidate ever.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a website knowpratibhapatil.com listing media articles about alleged scams involving Patil. The Congress Party has said the charges are politically motivated and involve institutions and Patil’s kinsmen but not her personally.
They party also retaliated by slinging mud at veteran BJP leader and opposition nominee Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Currently India’s vice president, Shekhawat has been three times chief minister of Rajasthan state.
According to the allegations, Shekhawat was suspended for taking a bribe as a policeman in 1947. The BJP has denied the charge.
“The point here is not whether Shekhawat will win or lose. The point here is why did the UPA and its supporters fail to find a suitable candidate? Why is the insitution of President of India being converted into an expression of loyalty to Sonia Gandhi to accommodate a lightweight person whose credentials on all fronts are highly suspect?” columnist Seema Mustafa wrote in the Asian Age newspaper.
Veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta wrote in the Indian Express newspaper that senior Congress Party leaders with whom he discussed the issue seemed embarassed but said that given a chance, Patil would prove to be a fine president.
Patil is likely to get that chance. India’s president is elected through a preferential vote by elected members of the two houses of Parliament and state assemblies.
A formula is used to value these votes so that there is a balance between the population of each state and the number of votes of each representative.
According to the latest count, the ruling alliance and its supporters had a vote value of 631,464 against the opposition’s combined 314,411. A third grouping, the United National Progressive Alliance, which has 105,000 votes, recently announced it would abstain from the elections.
Voting to choose India’s 13th president takes place on Thursday. The results will be out on Saturday. The new president will take over from Kalam on July 25.
NEW DELHI - A muckraking run-off to presidential elections in India looks set to end with the appointment of the country’s first female president on July 25.
Pratibha Patil, 72, currently governor of northern Rajasthan state, is the nominee of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and simple arithmetic in a complex election process predicts she will score a substantial win.
Patil, a lawyer from Maharshtra state, has never lost an election since she first contested for the state assembly in 1962, according to published reports. She won a beauty contest the same year. Patil has held important portfolios of health, education and urban development in the Maharashtra government but has never held a federal post.
Since her nomination, Patil has been at the centre of a storm of allegations and charges by the opposition and the media including nepotism, sheltering kinsmen accused of murder and abetting suicide, corruption and fraud.
According to one of the more serious charges, rural banks she established were used to give cheap loans to relatives. When those banks were liquidated by the authorities for malpractice or were abandoned, thousands were left paupers, the Indian Express newspaper and India Today magazine reported.
Patil has not helped her case by making ill-considered remarks like her communion with the spirit of a dead guru, who said she would occupy a position of great responsibility, or that Muslim women embraced the veil to protect themselves from Mughal invaders.
She also reportedly said on one occasion that sterilization should be made compulsory for people with hereditary diseases. Patil, if elected, will replace the highly popular APJ Abdul Kalam, 75, an eminent nuclear scientist, who never loses a chance to speak of his dreams of empowering youth to achieve a more egalitarian and prosperous India.
The post of president in India is largely titular, with all executive powers vested in the prime minister. But the president is also seen as the face and, as protector of the constitution, the conscience of India.
He, or she, has an important role to play when general elections throw up hung parliaments, state governments are dismissed and other crises of democracy.
Judgment, fairness and detachment are seen as necessary qualities for the president and Patil is being questioned on all three counts.
Former presidents have largely been elected by consensus and analysts say the current mudslinging is the downside of India’s increasingly partisan politics and assertive media.
When the UPA came up with possible presidential nominees, the left parties, whose support is crucial for the alliance in a fractured parliament, rejected each and every one.
Congress Party president and UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi finally came up with Patil, who is known to be a Ghandi-family loyalist.
Then followed the newspaper exposes and the opposition brickbats. Opinion polls run by leading newspapers indicated she was the least popular presidential candidate ever.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a website knowpratibhapatil.com listing media articles about alleged scams involving Patil. The Congress Party has said the charges are politically motivated and involve institutions and Patil’s kinsmen but not her personally.
They party also retaliated by slinging mud at veteran BJP leader and opposition nominee Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Currently India’s vice president, Shekhawat has been three times chief minister of Rajasthan state.
According to the allegations, Shekhawat was suspended for taking a bribe as a policeman in 1947. The BJP has denied the charge.
“The point here is not whether Shekhawat will win or lose. The point here is why did the UPA and its supporters fail to find a suitable candidate? Why is the insitution of President of India being converted into an expression of loyalty to Sonia Gandhi to accommodate a lightweight person whose credentials on all fronts are highly suspect?” columnist Seema Mustafa wrote in the Asian Age newspaper.
Veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta wrote in the Indian Express newspaper that senior Congress Party leaders with whom he discussed the issue seemed embarassed but said that given a chance, Patil would prove to be a fine president.
Patil is likely to get that chance. India’s president is elected through a preferential vote by elected members of the two houses of Parliament and state assemblies.
A formula is used to value these votes so that there is a balance between the population of each state and the number of votes of each representative.
According to the latest count, the ruling alliance and its supporters had a vote value of 631,464 against the opposition’s combined 314,411. A third grouping, the United National Progressive Alliance, which has 105,000 votes, recently announced it would abstain from the elections.
Voting to choose India’s 13th president takes place on Thursday. The results will be out on Saturday. The new president will take over from Kalam on July 25.
Labels: Female President, India, India News, News, President of India
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