The recent Presidential elections raised many points on whether Ms Pratibha Devisingh Patil Shekhawat was the automatic natural choice of the ruling coalition UPA for the Presidential post or imposed on it by the obstinacy of the Left parties.
In electoral coalition politics it is possible that a particular popular candidate is not chosen as a candidate, instead somebody else. (This time there was no popular candidate in the beginning itself)
The nomination of Pratibha Patil was such an event. And to say that she was handpicked by Sonia Gandhi and is her protege is baseless. This is being projected by BJP as they are still sore with her for their 2004 electoral defeat. ( She singlehandedly marched to the opposition camp and routed them from their safe settlements, lock, stock and barrel and banished them from the capital region, hopefully for ever. They are still to forgive her for that action and never will !!!!!!!!!! )
Pratibha may not be a dashing personality as Kalam or flashy like Ms. Angela Merkel of Germany, but remember what people were telling about Kalam at first, a politician should have become the president , not a technocrat. It is political immaturity to prejudge Pratibha this early. Flashy performances are deceptive..
It was the vicious campaign launched by BJP against Pratibha, for whatever reason ( or just to get their RSS candidate, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat propped to the pres chair?) which made this election quite nasty.
BJP which is renowned for it's personality bashing / character assasination ( in it's blood.., they raised the same charater assasination attempts against Sonia Gandhi during election time and failed miserably like a bunch of fools ), failed miserably this time too. It just required an article in Outlook accusing Bhairon Singh Dhekhawat of being anti-national and corrupt, besides being a fundamentalist, fighting against plurality in the Indian society that brought BJP to it's knees. Never in their wildest dreams did their 'communal' smarties Arun Shourie and Arun Jaitley realise they would be caught and exposed unawares and shamelessly on their own turf !!
In the meeting they had in the former PM's residence the next day after election to choose the VP candidate, there was no mention of their shameless defeat the previous day - vadi koduthu adi vangicha katha .. It was already a forgotten story !
In a democracy it is ok for people to have different political thoughts and lineage, at the same time it needs close introspection as to whether the stand is acceptable in society or not. Even after multiple repeats of faiscoes if a party still does not understand it's popularity base, it is in for serious trouble, digging it's own grave.
Elected directly or indirectly, pratibha is the representative of the majority of Indians. Whether the majority is right or wrong, only time can tell !!
Being loyal Indians, we can only hope that the majority decision is for the best !! (Responding to Padmakumar, I would have been happy if all 120 crores of this country could become Presidents, but only one among them can finally adorn that post. The grace to accept that is vital for the survival of democracy)
This is a link to the wikipedia resource on Ms Pratibha Patil, which points light to some of the avaoidable controversies she has found herself in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratibha_Patil
george..
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