Commentary/Rajiv Shukla
The Presidential race hots up
The Presidential candidature
will be finalised by the end of the Budget session and subsequently,
the process to elect a vice-president will be initiated.
For all practical purposes, the race for the presidency involves
two candidates -- President Shankar Dayal Sharma and Vice President K
R Narayanan. Dr Sharma is learnt to be keen on a
second term and some former ministers like Motilal Vora, Vinod Sharma
and Suresh Pachauri are lobbying hard for him.
The opposite camp comprise a large section of United Front and
Congress MPs. This bloc, featuring, among others, Left leaders
like Sitaram Yechury and Janata Dal heavyweights including C M Ibrahim,
Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav, finds it thoroughly inagreeable to have
Dr Sharma for another term. Paswan, for his part,
have long been advocating the need for a dalit President. Thus,
for this group, Narayanan is the ideal candidate.
But for a few Janata Dal leaders close to Prime Minister
H D Deve Gowda, Sitaram Kesri is the wild card. The PM's coterie is keen that Kesri become
President and the Congress joins the United Front government. But
Kesri loyalists Tariq Anwar and Ghulam Nabi Azad insist the Congress
chief would rather be the next prime minister.
While both Deve Gowda and Kesri have maintained a discreet silence
about the presidentship issue, it is likely to be a straightforward
Shankar Dayal Sharma vs K R Narayanan tussle. In case the latter
becomes President, the vice-president's election will have to
take place immediately.
Here, the field is much more crowded -- more than half-a-dozen
contenders are in the fray. At the moment, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Dr
Najma Heptullah, former Lok Sabha speaker
Shivraj Patil, Karnataka Governor Khursheed Alam Khan and former
Union minister P M Sayeed are among the front-runners. Other
names doing the rounds are those of former Lok Sabha speaker Rabi Ray, Lok Speaker
Purno A Sangma and National Conference member of Parliament Dr Karan Singh.
Shivraj Patil, confident of roping in Bharatiya Janata Party support for his candidature, believes
that he is the consensus man. Heputallah is banking on her experience
as the vice-president's deputy in the Rajya Sabha. Plus, the fact that she is a Muslim
and, more importantly, a woman. Dr Karan Singh's scholarly profile
has several takers. Sangma, too, has a good many followers; but he is not too keen to
say good-bye to active politics just yet.
But there is another non-political person in the fray who could well upset all calculations -- Chief
Justice A M Ahmadi who is due to retire this month. Deve Gowda's team is wary of
either the Presidency or vice-presidentship going to former
or present Congressmen. So, several UF leaders have extended support to Justice Ahmadi.
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