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Medium Term: India's Presidents are chosen on the basis of the lowest common denominator

It’s that time again. The time when the next President of India will be elected and the lobbying,

jostling and campaigning have begun. As of course, has the speculation about who will get the job.      There was a time when I

played along with the guessing game. And frankly, it wasn’t too difficult to work out who the likely contenders were. The convention was that unless there was a compelling reason to disqualify him, the vice-president usually followed the President into Rashtrapati Bhavan. When this convention was flouted, the consequences could be dramatic. For instance, when the Congress party nominated Sanjeeva Reddy as its candidate ignoring the claims of vice-president V.V. Giri in 1969, the fall out included a split in the party and the eventual election of Giri as an independent candidate who had the tacit support of Indira Gandhi.

 

   These days, conventions don’t necessarily apply and consensus is hard to come by. A decade ago, P.C. Alexander, who was governor of Maharashtra, was assured by the BJP that the job was his for the asking. But in these days of fractured mandates, no one party can elect a President. The college for a presidential election includes all state legislatures and this introduces new complex factors. The BJP found that it did not have the numbers to get Alexander elected on its own. The Congress refused to support Alexander’s candidacy and suggested a compromise candidate. The party sent Natwar Singh to meet with Brajesh Mishra, then the powerful principal secretary to PM A.B. Vajpayee and the two men agreed on Krishan Kant, the sitting vice-president, as a compromise candidate. The news was conveyed to Kant and he celebrated his impending elevation.

 

   Except that the BJP faced an internal revolt over Krishan Kant’s nomination. BJP leaders who had backed Alexander now refused to support Krishan Kant. A furious hunt for a new compromise candidate was launched.

 

   Eventually, somebody from outside the BJP – both Mulayam Singh and Chandrababu Naidu take the credit – suggested Abdul Kalam who had just retired from government service. A bemused Kalam was offered the job, suppressed his surprise long enough to say ‘yes’ and suddenly, India had a new President.

 

   Who could have predicted that Kalam would become President? His was a name that had never featured on any lists of likely candidates.

 

   So it was with Pratibha Patil. The Congress candidate for President five years ago was Dr Karan Singh, a remarkable man who would have made an outstanding President. The chances were that the BJP, which respects Karan Singh’s scholarly research into Hindu philosophy, would have backed the choice. But before it got to that stage, there was a revolt within the UPA and its supporters. The Left opposed Karan Singh not because of anything he had said or done but because his father was the Maharaja of Kashmir. Casting aside the liberal doctrine that people should be judged by their own actions and not by accidents of birth, the Left argued that it could not possibly support the candidacy of the son of a Maharaja.

 

"Hamid Ansari, a former foreign service officer, has been an exemplary vice-president. It is not hard to see that he would make a good President."

   A desperate scramble to find a compromise candidate ensued. And eventually, the Congress came up with Pratibha Patil, a low-profile figure who had not featured on any lists of potential Presidents.

 

   In the light of all this, I think it is foolish to try and speculate who the next President will be. If we go by recent precedents then the winning candidate will be somebody who is appointed not because of his or her strengths but because of what politicians call ‘acceptability’ – an absence of negatives, both real and imagined.

 

   Even so, some names are already doing the rounds. Mulayam Singh Yadav has floated the phantom candidacy of APJ Abdul Kalam, arguing that as Kalam was a popular President the first time around, he should get a second term. Plus, says the Samajwadi Party, given the nature of its support base, it is duty bound to suggest a Muslim candidate.

 

   The trouble is that there is already an obvious Muslim candidate. Hamid Ansari, a former foreign service officer, has been an exemplary vice-president. It is not hard to see that he would make a good President. He does not play political games, has stature, speaks well and would not embarrass India on foreign trips in the way in which some Presidents have in the past.

 

   The problem with Ansari’s candidacy is that the BJP sees him as the candidate of the Left and therefore, feels obliged to oppose him. More significantly, Ansari’s detractors have been telling Mamata Banerjee that the Trinamul, traditional opponents of the CPM, cannot possibly support a Left-backed candidate.

 

   For all this, I think Ansari still has the strongest chance at this stage of the game. If the Congress wants a non-controversial choice, it will put him forward and I suspect that the allies will fall in line. Though Ansari’s real asset is his personality, the way Indian politics works, it may be his religion that best advances his candidacy.

 

   But these are early days yet and many other names are bubbling under the surface. There is no doubt that Pranab Mukherjee would make a first-rate President but given that he is almost the de facto Prime Minister, can the Congress afford to lose his services? Talk of a Manmohan Singh candidacy never fades though I don’t see how the BJP could possibly support him given the things that it has said about his ineptitude. Within the BJP, there are murmurs about a Jaswant Singh candidacy though I doubt if Jaswant will get support across the political spectrum.

 

   My fear is that we will end up, once again, with a President who is elected not for any positive reason but because he or she is the least offensive or objectionable compromise candidate.

 

   I don’t know about you but as far as I am concerned, it is a real shame that the world’s largest democracy can’t elect a first citizen whose job is to make India proud of him or her rather than one whose candidacy emerges out sordid negotiations amongst squabbling politicos in smoke-filled rooms.

 


 

CommentsComments

  • Mugil Vannan 11 May 2012

    As is wont, do you think there are any complete outside the spectrum consensus candidate who could sneak past and enter the President's palace. E Sreedharan of the Delhi Metro fame comes to mind. He is also just retired, universally admired and acceptable role model for young India to aspire to. We have had a missile man as head of state. Now, a metro man will not be bad either.

  • R Gorayan 09 May 2012

    Well, if the role is only ceremonial and the job is mostly ribbon cutting and photo taking, then what's it matter who or how or why they get it? Reality reflects that - all the squabblers and deal makers are more interested in scoring a point (or downing the other guy) than appointing the right person. Let's first define a real job for the Prez, that's the only way someone will want to fight a real fight for it.

  • Rakesh Sapra 29 Apr 2012

    Remember the stalling of the Lok Pal Bill in the Rajya Sabha The referee, Mr Ansari blew the whistle at a most opportune time signalling the end of the match And you say he doesn't play any political games?

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