You have to first decide what the presidency is all about. Is it about political experience? Is it about respect? Or, put another way, is it merely a ceremonial office, or is it an important political office? It cannot be both and that is one more reason the Congress sounds so unconvincing — and unconvinced. If they use the argument, why are you getting so excited, it is after all merely a ceremonial sinecure, you ask, then why the insistence on a candidate with ‘political background’? If the argument is that it is an important political office needing a politician, then why a lightweight, a mere second-rung state-level leader; one who was never even a member of the Union cabinet, a chief minister or a member of the CWC? The way the party and its allies — at least those that it consulted — went about selecting the next president, it seemed it was the least important sinecure in the Republic. Now you can’t defend yourselves saying, don’t take notice of any adverse revelations about her, after all, come July 25, and she will represent the glory of the Republic.

We will return to the issue of the allegations against her soon enough, but the problem with Pratibha Patil is not so much her track record as a banker, sugar mill owner or education entrepreneur. The problem is her lack of political stature. If, rather than give senior party men hope only to discard them, the Congress had chosen at least a well-known national figure, it could have saved itself this embarrassment, and the presidency this totally uncalled for trivialisation. After a massacre of its senior-most hopefuls, the Congress pulled out a lightweight who had never served on the national stage, and had not even been a chief minister in her state, probably because she was seen as non-controversial, and a woman too. This backfired. Her political and business background has only now come under public scrutiny. So have some of her utterances that do nothing for the cause of the modern Indian woman, or even gender equality.

... contd.