By Liz Mathew
New Delhi : India will elect Thursday its 13th president, in all probability a woman for the first time, after a muckraking campaign that has already dented the prestige of the country’s highest office.
Never before in the history of Indian presidency have the leading groupings stooped so low, bringing to disrepute both the contenders: Pratibha Patil of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as well as Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
And although Patil’s victory is assured because she has numbers on her side, she is most unlikely to enjoy the kind of universal respect A.P.J. Kalam has had since his election in 2002. The scientist steps down July 25 after five eventful years during which he became a household name.
The Patil-Shekhawat battle witnessed the most ugly personalised campaign, with both the Congress-led UPA and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA accusing each other’s candidate of incompetence and worse.
Election to the post of Indian president has mostly been a feel good affair, based on consensus among political parties. But the fight between Patil, 72, a lawyer-turned-politician from Maharashtra, and Shekhawat, 83, a BJP veteran and three-time Rajasthan chief minister, has been just the opposite.
The two sides have flung charges of forgery, fraud and financial impropriety against each other, disappointing millions of Indians who will not be voting in the election but are keen to see a worthy successor to Kalam.
The BJP has even launched a website – knowpratibhapatil.com – to highlight the charges against Patil. The Congress has denounced Shekhawat for not quitting the vice president’s post before jumping on to the poll fray.
Patil has even been accused of shielding her brother, who faces murder charges. Though she has denied the charges as “malicious and baseless”, opinion polls say she is the least popular presidential choice in recent times.
The one advantage Patil has is that she can be sure of winning: the Congress-led UPA, the Left and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), whose joint candidate she is, enjoy majority in the electoral college of MPs and state legislators.
Knowing Shekhawat will in all probability lose, BJP leader L.K. Advani has written to MPs and MLAs , calling for “conscious votes”, in a bid to break up the Patil camp.
Congress leaders including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are, however, standing by Patil, who was a sudden last minute pick of the ruling coalition after the Left vetoed all the first choices of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Critics say Patil’s only eligibility is her closeness to Gandhi. In any case, Patil has not helped matters by her reticence and some bizarre remarks that have only added a negative perception about her.
Political analysts feel the mudslinging will adversely affect the political system.
“The election to the highest post has been at its lowest level,” N. Bhaskar Rao, a political analyst, told IANS.
“It will have repercussions on the polity, the status of its leaders, and the responsibilities and dignity of its public figures,” he said. “The politicians have forgotten that they have to be role models.”
In the process, the fact that India will get its first woman president, after six long decades of independence from British rule, has got buried under the weight of the allegations and counter-allegations.
But the ruling alliance views the presidential election as a political advantage as it has broken up the NDA.
The Shiv Sena, the BJP’s oldest ally, has announced it will back Patil because of her Maharashtra origins. Another BJP ally, the Trinamool Congress, is already distancing itself from Shekhawat.
Patil is assured of at least 631,464 votes of the total 1.098 million votes. The NDA has 246,957 votes. The undecided votes are 130,605, mostly of the newly formed United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA). The votes will be counted on July 21. The new president will take charge July 25.