India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

Pratibha Patil elected first woman President : Shekhawat quits as Vice President

	July 23, 2007

The most bitterly contested Presidential election in the country’s history came to a conclusion on Saturday, July 21, with UPA-Left nominee Pratibha Patil creating history by becoming the first woman to be elected to the highest office in the land. She will be sworn in as the country’s 12th President on July 25, succeeding President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.



Immediately after the result of the Presidential election was announced by Returning Officer P.D.T. Achary, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, NDA-supported Independent candidate, resigned as Vice President, accepting his defeat with “all humility.”



Pratibha Patil secured 65.82 per cent of the valid votes polled in comparison to 34.18 per cent polled by Shekhawat, who became the only sitting Vice President to lose a Presidential election. He drew a blank in four states - Mizoram, and the three Left-ruled states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.



In her first interaction with the media, Pratibha Patil described her victory as the triumph of ‘just principles and values.’ She said, “I am grateful to the people of the country for extending support to me.”



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi visited Pratibha Patil’s residence and congratulated her. Dr. Manmohan Singh saw her election as a “victory of the forces of unity and secularism against the divisive forces.” Sonia Gandhi expressed gratitude to UPA allies for helping elect the first woman President of Independent India. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “the BJP’s call for a conscience vote has gone against it.”



The BJP had launched an all out attack on Pratibha Patil over alleged nepotism and financial irregularities in her management of the cooperative bank, sugar mill and educational institutions she had set up. The party conducted a high-pitch campaign calling for a conscience vote and demanded that like Shekhawat, she should declare her assets and liabilities, though it is not required under the law as it stands.





Cross-voting



Reflecting the UPA-Left’s nationwide spread, Pratibha Patil got votes in every state. Briefing mediapersons, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi - who doubled up as Pratibha Patil’s official representative for the election - said there was evidence of cross-voting in her favour in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Madhya Pradesh recorded the largest number of invalid votes: all of them were marked in favour of Shekhawat but with the words ‘Jai Shri Ram’ or ‘Om’.



At the Parliament level, 16 “extra” votes came for Pratibha Patil. Exceeding the Congress calculation that 426 MPs - from the ruling arrangement and the Bahujan Samaj Party - would vote for her, Patil got 442 votes from both Houses of Parliament.



Counting for the States took much of the time because of the variation in the value of votes. While results from all States came in by 4.30 p.m., counting of votes polled by MPs was wrapped up within the next hour. At the end, Patil’s tally stood at 6,38,116 and Shekhawat’s at 3,31,306.



Dasmunsi said he hoped that senior BJP leader L.K. Advani would respect the verdict as the real voice of conscience.



Earlier, even as the results from the States came in, a sense of jubilation swept the UPA quarters with senior leaders, from Congress president Sonia Gandhi, making a beeline for 11 South Avenue, the President-elect’s camp office in the capital.



Dancing and bursting of crackers marked the celebrations outside the AICC headquarters on Akbar Road.



Cross-voting was not confined to NDA supporters. There are reports that five Haryana Congress MLAs voted in favour of Shekhawat. They allegedly belong to the Bhajan Lal-Bishnoi camp. Shekhawat got seven votes in Haryana while the BJP has only two members in the State Assembly. The nine-member Indian National Lok Dal, a constituent of the Third Front, had abstained in the polling.





BJP reconciled to working with Pratibha Patil



For the record, the BJP has said that it had no plans to take forward its campaign against Pratibha Patil on the basis of allegations levelled against her. Most BJP leaders said they were reconciled to working with her as President. “That is not my thinking”, Advani said when asked if the BJP would boycott her. BJP chief Rajnath Singh said, “We respect the Office of the President.” Another senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said, “The President is an institution.”







—————————Box————————



Presidents of India





1. Rajendra Prasad 1952-57 and

1957-62



2. S. Radhakrishnan 1962-67



3. Zakir Hussain 1967-69

(Died in office)



4. V.V. Giri 1969-74



5. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed 1974-77

(Died in office)



6. N. Sanjeeva Reddy 1977-82



7. Zail Singh 1982-87



8. R. Venkataraman 1987-92



9. S.D. Sharma 1992-97



10. K.R. Naryanan 1997-02



11. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 2002-07



12. Pratibha Patil 2007-



———————————Box ends here————————





Shekhawat graceful in defeat



Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat did not show any emotion when the news broke that Pratibha Patil had defeated him by a huge margin. As soon as Patil was officially declared elected as President, he called her up to congratulate her. Later, he drove to Rashtrapati Bhavan to submit his resignation to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. In his brief resignation letter, he thanked Kalam for his cooperation and guidance.



After resigning, Shekhawat gave up his official vehicle and returned from Rashtrapati Bhavan in his personal car. The 84-year hold NDA-backed independent candidate leader issued a statement saying he accepted his defeat with “all humility.”



Shekhawat also said he would continue to “work for the uplift of the poor and deprived sections of society so that they can enjoy their fundamental rights with dignity.” He extended his heartfelt gratitude to the MPs and MLAs who voted for him. “I am also grateful to the people of this great country for giving me their boundless love and affection during the whole process,” he said in the statement.





Electors can abstain from voting : EC



During the eventful week leading upto the polling on July 19 and counting on July 21 in the Presidential election, the BJP tried its best to dent Pratibha Patil’s image so that the electors cast their “conscience” vote in favour of “independent” Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. The NDA approached the Election Commission with the demand that the Third Front’s decision to abstain in the voting in the Presidential election should be declared unconstitutional. An NDA delegation led by the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani met the Election Commission on Monday, July 16, and submitted a six-page memorandum in this connection. The NDA argued that since the legislators cast their votes as people’s representatives, it was their constitutional obligation under Art. 54 and 55 to exercise their franchise purely in their individual capacity and as elected representatives of people and not as members of a political party. The memorandum said, asking them to abstain would be unconstitutional as an MP or an MLA was entitled to ignore such direction.



Apart from Advani, the delegation included NDA convener George Fernandes and BJP leaders Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley and V.K. Malhotra.



The Election Commission’s ruling which came a day later on Tuesday, July 17, made it clear that MLAs and MPs constituting the electoral college are free to abstain from voting. But the Commission warned that issuing of whips by political parties asking their MLAs or MPs to vote or abstain in the presidential poll would be tantamount to exercising undue influence on the voters.



The full Commission considered the BJP’s demand that “compulsive abstention” should be declared unconstitutional in the wake of the decision of the ‘Third Front’ to abstain, and said, voting or not voting in the presidential election would not attract disqualification.



EC also said electors in the presidential election - MPs and MLAs - vote as members of the electoral college and the voting is outside the Houses concerned and not a part of the proceeding of the House.



EC said that like Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, voting in the presidential election is not compulsory. It said every elector has the freedom of making a choice to vote for any of the candidates or not to vote as per his free will and choice.



This freedom, it said, will equally apply to the political parties and they are free to canvass or seek votes of electors for any candidate or to request or appeal to them to refrain from voting.



The Shekhawat camp, increasingly desperate to poll a respectable number, tried to put up a brave front in the face of the setback. Speaking after a meeting of the NDA, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed that they had merely asked EC to clarify that no whip could be issued, and that the stand had been upheld by the poll body.



Sushma Swaraj kept up her diatribe against UNPA for not coming to the assistance of Shekhawat, saying that the reason cited by the components of the just-formed grouping, that they could not side with the BJP, did not hold water. All of them have been with the BJP at one point or the other, she argued.



The Commission clarified that voting in the presidential election was different from voting by an MP or MLA inside the House and that, as held by the Supreme Court, the provisions of the anti-defection law may not apply to the presidential election.



Earlier on July 15, the BJP had termed the UNPA decision to abstain from voting as anti-democratic. “Nearly one lakh votes would go waste due to the UNPA’s stand. Besides, the move will vitiate and weaken democracy,” the BJP said.



“United National Progressive Alliance’s decision is against healthy democratic norms. Many decisions for the good of the country are taken by the person occupying the top post,” BJP president Rajnath Singh said while appealing to the electoral college to participate in the polls.



He said NDA’s opposition to UPA-Left presidential nominee Pratibha Patil stemmed from allegations levelled against her by non-political persons. It was not opposing Patil as a woman aspirant for the top post, the BJP president said. “We are opposing her candidature as many allegations of wrong doing have been levelled against her by non-political persons,” the party president said.



Meanwhile, the BJP has also threatened to review its ties with the Shiv Sena. “We will review the alliance only after July 19,” BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said. “Sena should rethink on its decision keeping in view our long association and ideological similarities,” she added while seeking voting for Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.





Jailed electors allowed to vote



On Wednesday, July 18, the Supreme Court refused to restrain MPs or MLAs convicted and serving their sentences in jail from voting in the July 19 Presidential election. A bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balarkishnan said, using the civil right by the elected representatives so far as their franchise as members of the electoral college was concerned was different than the ordinary citizens.



A public interest litigation petition filed by advocate Z.K. Faizan had sought a direction to the Election Commission to prevent jailed MPs and MLAs from voting. The court said that while it would hear the petition in due course, the jailed MPs/MLAs could not be debarred from voting. It observed, “They are members of the Electoral College, representing their constituencies. If they are not allowed to vote, the entire constituency will remain unrepresented. We are not dismissing your petition. We will hear you.”



Following the Supreme Court ruling, several jailed legislators exercised their franchise on July 19.





High turnout



About 88.5 per cent of Parliamentarians and 91 per cent of the State legislators cast their votes on July 19. Eight states registered one hundred per cent polling. Among the first to cast their ballots in Delhi were Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.



On the eve of the polling, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi hosted a dinner for leaders and legislators of the parties and groups supporting Pratibha Patil’s presidential venture on July 17. Among those who attended the dinner were CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat and CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan. They shared the table with the UPA chairperson, the Prime Minister and the Presidential nominee. Among those conspicuous by their absence was BSP supremo and UP Chief Minister Mayawati. Congress spokesperson Abhishekh Singhvi said the BSP had informed the UPA leadership in advance that its MPs and MLAs would not be able to attend the dinner because of their pre-fixed engagement in Lucknow.





Pratibha Patil regrets smear campaign



Speaking in Ahmedabad on July 15, Pratibha Patil regretted the smear campaign against her, but said she was committed to serving the people of the country with humility and sincerity. She was addressing a meeting of Congress Members of Parliament and MLAs in Gujarat.



In a significant move, Pratibha Patil did not visit Mumbai during the course of her campaign for the presidential election. However, Maharashtra Chief Minister Deshmukh talked to Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray to thank him for his support for Pratibha Patil.





CBI rapped for laxity in probe against Pratibha Patil’s brother



On July 17, the Bombay High Court hit out at the CBI for not investigating allegations made by Rajni Patil, wife of murdered Congress worker, V.G. Patil, against two persons including the brother of Pratibha Patil.



The high court said,”If this is the kind of investigation you have conducted, then we are concerned, indeed we are constrained to say that the country’s premier investigating agency is being corroded.”



CBI counsel B A Desai told a bench headed by Justice R M S Khandeparkar that the agency was doing its best and would continue with the probe into the case that dates back to 2005. But the court insisted on knowing what had the CBI achieved in the last four months since it took up the case.



Rajni Patil, widow of the victim VG Patil, who was the Congress district committee president from Jalgaon, had alleged in her plea that the probe was directionless. At the hearing on Tuesday, her lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani said that two CDs have surfaced which contain incriminating material against Patil’s brother.



The murder case has come into focus as Rajni has charged that Pratibha, while she was the Rajasthan Governor, had tried to shield her brother who was named by a hit man as one of the masterminds behind the murder.







‘People’s President’ to leave with two suitcases



President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who completes his five year tenure on July 24, is preparing to leave Rashtrapati Bhavan on July 25 with two small suitcases, apart from his collection of books. In an interaction with editors and journalists on July 20, he said he would be out of Delhi for at least 20 days a month on teaching assignments, that begin on July 26. Having tied up with five institutions in the country, Dr. Kalam may perhaps remain as busy as during his tenure as President. His first stop will be Anna University in Chennai on July 26. Among the other institutions where he would be having teaching assignments are Hyderabad University, the Rural University at Gandhi Dham and the Space Research Centre at Thiruvananthapuram.



Dr. Kalam said he was not going to miss the trappings of power he enjoyed as the country’s first citizen. “I was born a common man, and I am happy to be going back among common men”, Kalam said.



Asked about his most trying moments as President, Dr. Kalam called his decision to return the Office of Profit Bill back to Parliament for reconsideration as the most difficult one. The Bill exempted 56 posts from the Office of Profit Disqualification condition. Kalam wanted the MPs to come up with a comprehensive and generic criteria.







Special Midnight session of Parliament on August 14



The Government is planning to celebrate the 60th year of Indian Independence with a special midnight session of Parliament on August 14, to commemorate India’s tryst with destiny. While dates for the Monsoon session to begin next month after the new President and Vice President take office, have not yet been finalised, preparations are afoot for a two-hour joint session of both Houses to be held in the Central Hall of Parliament to relive the excitement of freedom at midnight attained in August 1947.



The two hour session, starting at 11 p.m. on August 14, will have 45 minutes of screening and some songs, while the remaining time has been set aside for speeches by President, Vice President, Prime Minister and other leaders.