With the BJP set on nominating Bhairon Singh Shekhawat for the post of the next President and important UPA partners as well as Left allies unwilling to rubber stamp “just any old Congressman” for the post, the Congress party’s dilemma on choosing its nominee for Rashtrapati Bhavan remains unsolved despite receiving assurance of support from the Bahujan Samaj Party.

As a result, even though the Congress does not want to spare Union External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee for the post, he remains very much in the race, well placed sources indicated today.

But while confabulations with allies and the Left parties are likely to drag on for another week or two, the Congress leadership is clear that there can be no “consensus” on any other name except that chosen by the ruling dispensation.

As per constitutional propriety as well as tradition, it is the ruling party’s prerogative to choose the President, it feels.

Elaborating on this theme, senior Congress leader Devendra Dwivedi told The Indian Express: “The Prime Minister and the President are two sides of the same Cabinet coin. If the President represents the majesty of the Indian state, the Prime Minister represents the sovereign will of the Indian people. There is synergy between the two institutions and hence the necessity of synergy between the two incumbents.” The prerogative of the Prime Minister to choose the President has been upheld since Independence — not just when the Congress was in power but when it was in the Opposition too. “We supported Moraji Desai’s candidate Sanjeeva Reddy in 1977, the Third Front’s candidate K R Narayanan in 1997, and Vajpayee’s candidate Abdul Kalam in 2002,” Dwivedi said.

... contd.