| Published on 02-07-2007 In National |
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| A lightweight paperweight |
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Written by
Cho Ramaswamy |
The Congress has cracked a joke whose lighter side has been appreciated by its coalition partners at the Centre. The Left has said agreed to this premise. The humour club called the United Progressive Alliance has provided homely entertainment – which in turn has met with approval of the hoi polloi.
Allow me to explain.
With due approval from the Left, the Congress has announced the candidature of Pratibha Patil for the presidential polls. Given the bench strength of those who have nodded to this proposal, it is not too difficult to expect her being crowned.
The selection of Pratibha Patil as a presidential hopeful has been an interesting process [since] several personalities have been discarded during this exercise for various reasons.
Sushil Kumar Shinde, a Dalit was one such name. But, that qualification itself was his Achilles' heel because many expected [the opposition nominee] Bhairon Singh Shekhawat would net unexpected numbers of cross-votes due to that very reason.
Shivraj Patil was another name the Congress persisted with because Sonia Gandhi had great faith in him. But the Left managed to convince her that he wouldn't be able to defeat Shekhawat and hence Patil was jettisoned unceremoniously.
In the case of Pranab Mukherjee, a seasoned politician who knows his Constitution thoroughly, his very plus points became the cause for his disqualification because there were many who did not expect him to morph into a rubber stamp during crunch situations by ignoring precedents and tradition. His continued assistance to the government as an able administrator became the lame excuse for his exclusion.
Another name was – Karan Singh – known for his staunch beliefs in Hindu religion. He not only lectures abroad on allied subjects, the man had even constructed a temple. For the secularists, that was reason enough to nix him because belief in Hinduism means "communal" in the centre-left lexicon. More importantly, the Congress wanted to rule him out anyway, so it simply used the communists' argument.
Then came the clincher candidate, Pratibha Patil – a woman – whom the leftists couldn't dare to scorn because they are working so hard for the emancipation of the weaker sex fettered by male domination for ages. Patil has the attribute of having Sonia's ear. Already coalition partners had said with emphatic magnanimity that they would support whosoever was put up by the Congress. That was it.
Congress supporters are hailing this step as a historic empowerment of women.
That the history part itself is a left handed compliment to which I will come to a little later.
Obviously the numbers game favoured Patil because she has no political base. The Congress and the communists saw rare virtue in this disposition because this zero had acquired a status with the numero uno of the Congress. By the same yardstick such a rare integer wouldn't dare to cross its paths either. For the time being, the headache called 33.33% reservation for women in Parliament had acquired a new balm.
For reasons yet to be properly quantified – certain elements from the opposition NDA and even the UNPA may end up voting for Patil because she has not betrayed strong likes or dislikes in any major issue.
Like thousands of politicians before her, she has served as a minister in a state (Maharashtra ), been a parliamentarian who hasn't made any waves and recently has occupied a gubernatorial chair (in Rajasthan).
It is Patil's tenancy of the Raj Bhavan in Jaipur that had caught the eye of the leftists because she had turned down a bill to prevent proselytes. That the government of Himachal Pradesh (which also belongs to the same Congress) had done a similar thing hasn't bothered the reds is beside the point as it denotes their clarity of vision!
As of now, what stands between Patil and the Presidency is the possibility of political triple jeopardy: [a] sizeable numbers of those who are supposed to vote for her should not and cast them in favour of "independent" Shekhawat; [b] those within the NDA who have suddenly assumed "independence" should mend their ways and [c] the entire lot of UNPA should give their second preference votes to Shekhawat. Such a rare confluence is rarity but not impossible.
That brings me back to the start of this commentary. The very fact that UPA and its cohorts have taken the Presidential polls so lightly that they are backing a political lightweight with all their might indicating that they want the person holding the highest office of the land to be someone who ought to be taken lightly – in other words – a joke.
In more ways than one, after this election, as far as the Congress is concerned, the post will be the equivalent to individual ornamental "Padma" awardees.
In a word, just as a near illiterate Rabri Devi became the Chief Minister of Bihar, her educated version will become the President. Long live democracy!
(Translated from Thuglak by TSV Hari) |
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