Madam President: Masterstroke?

“ I’m always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians”
John F. Kennedy
(Courtesy TOI)

After much political deliberations and consensus building, Sonia Gandhi, the Chairperson of the UPA, finally declared the UPA’s candidate for the post of the 13th President of India. Pratibha Patil emerged as the surprise consensus candidate and the announcement also sounded the end of the Shivraj Patil and Sushil Kumar Shinde presidential campaigns. In doing so, the Congress is claiming the moral high ground – for in the 60th year of the Republic’s independence the country will have a woman President – and it is the Congress that will go down in history as having put her there. The move is tactically smart, as the Congress has pulled a “Kalam” in throwing an option that most political parties will have difficulty opposing. In Governor Patil, you have a North Indian, Maharashtrian, upper caste Thakur, stature (though as compared to Shivraj Patil and Shinde most Governors in the country could beat them on that count), a known loyalist and most of all she is a woman. That this lady existed with such perfect credentials in the national scene and why she was never considered till the day of reckoning is a mystery. It does seem that with her nomination, the brilliant career of Mr. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat seems to have hit the end of the road. There is no doubt that all the talk of cross voting will now come to naught and Mr. Shekhawat will contest as a token opposition candidate.

While the Patil nomination does serve the Congress and its UPA allies well, the fact that the woman president card was brought in so late in the discussions does indicate that the UPA was not keen to have a woman candidate right from the start. Any insinuation that it was a planned move to install a woman at Raisina Hill is specious. As the right wing media and the opposition is claiming that after Sonia Gandhi’s candidate Shivraj Patil was out rightly rejected, the Congress and Gandhi decided to fall back on the relatively safe and non-controversial candidature of the other Patil. And in choosing Patil the Congress ensured that whatever resistance the Left might put up would evaporate. For the Left having put the candidature of Captain Lakhsmi Sehgal in the last presidential elections, rejecting a woman candidate was not an option. The allies, including the DMK, NCP and RJD seem to go along with her candidature and so Patil’s moment in history finally arrived. With the position of the President more or less decided, the fight for the Vice President’s chair will soon hot up. It is highly likely that the DMK will push for their man for the post – for the unwritten understanding is that if the President is from the North, her Vice President should be from the South. While some analysts argue that the Left will stake a claim for the VP’s position, it does seem unlikely, as the Congress would not want the Left to emerge as the kingmaker with having scuttled the Shivraj Patil candidature and then installing one of their comrades in the Vice President’s post. The DMK, having just recovered from the embarrassing family soap opera, will press for their man for the job, but with the Prime Minister facing flak for having ministers thrust upon them form his allies, like in the case of A Raja for the Communications portfolio, it remains to be seen how seriously the DMK candidature is taken within the power circles of the Congress.

The main drawback in installing a woman president seems to be the fate of the Women’s Reservation Bill. With a woman at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, one feels that the call for the bill to be passed will diminish rather than gather pace. It is unlikely that in a male dominated political system the male politician will let go of the Parliament after having seen the all male bastion of the Rashtrapati Bhavan having already being breached. If the political casualty of a woman president is the women’s reservation bill, not many tears will be shed across the political spectrum.

So while many questions will continue to be raised about Pratibha Patil and her candidature, the Congress will feel that they have played a masterstroke in having virtually installed a loyalist in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In doing so the party has once again elevated itself from the pack by showing “political morality” with respect to their power hungry foes. However, as soon as the Congress takes the moral high ground on issues, some tough questions do arise. Namely, does Pratibha Patil “fit the bill” because she is a woman or because she is Gandhi- Nehru loyalist? Secondly, is loyalty to a political family more than to a political cause the only criteria for selecting a President? Was the NDA for all its tokenism in installing a Muslim as the President, not choose a candidate that made the nation proud and who yet was not a BJP loyalist. If Sonia Gandhi was so keen to give woman their due in the 60th year of India’s independence, why didn’t she show her political resolve and declare only a woman candidate from the start? These questions will find scant answers, especially from the UPA. It is without a doubt though, that when all the talk about the Presidential polls is written and analyzed, having a woman president will make the nation proud. And the UPA knows it.