Droupadi Murmu is a dedicated tribal leader, and Yashwant Sinha’s candidature looks weak.
New Delhi: During the prime ministerships of Pandit Nehru, from Indira Gandhi to Manmohan Singh, serious controversies and problems arose regarding the presidential candidate of the Congress or the ruling coalition. Nehru himself was not in favour of making Dr Rajendra Prasad the first President. But, following the opinion of top Congress leaders, including Sardar Patel, he had to become President not only once, but twice. Indira Gandhi protested against the Congress’ “fixed candidate” Neelam Sanjiva Reddy on the voice of conscience and got independent candidate V.V. Giri made the President. From this point of view, current Prime Minister Narendra Modi has turned the board of the opposition badly by putting forward the name of Droupadi Murmu for the post of President. At present, the leaders of regional parties in different states, including the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, both the factions of Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray, have surrendered and have come in favour of Droupadiji. Even the conscience of some Congressmen of the Maha Aghadi of the so-called Chanakya elder Sharad Pawar is hinting at increasing the figure of defeat for the opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
An interesting aspect of the presidential election tradition is that Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was the only leader who himself did everything possible to become the President once the Janata Party came to power in 1977 after losing to Indira Gandhi. With the help of old Congressmen, Jan Sangh, socialists, etc., the dream could be fulfilled. No leader, including Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Radhakrishnan, or Dr Zakir Hussain himself, took any initiative to become the President. Rather, the elected leaders after him never even imagined that he would reach the highest office in the country. For Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Pratibha Patil, Ramnath Kovid, and now Droupadi Murmuji, no one ever guessed that she could be the President. Interestingly, in some elections, veterans had to face tough competition. Dr Zakir Hussain was highly respected and was the Vice President. After this, Indira Gandhi made him a candidate, and senior leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan came out in his favour. But at that time, the opposition made the candidate of K. Subba Rao, who had resigned from the post of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, loudly. But during the election, non-Congress MLAs from some states supported Dr Zakir Hussain instead of Subba Rao. Like Subba Rao, former Supreme Court Justice H.R. Khanna, T.N. Seshan, a leader of electoral reforms, Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s aide, and non-political people like lawyer Ram Jethmalani, stood as independents for the presidency, but suffered a crushing defeat.
This time, the opposition candidate, Yashwant Sinha, has been very ambitious. Apart from a government administrative job, he is associated with many political parties, and maintained relations with V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and L.K. Advani from time to time, and got positions of power. While being a minister, he was also involved in many controversies, including the UTI scam. But when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, he and Subramanian Swamy could not get any important posts. Then Sinha got involved in manipulations with the BJP and the opposition against Modi and became the Vice President of Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee who also needed a national-level leader. Efforts were made to make Yashwant Sinha victorious in some way on the slogan of unity of the opposition and the strength of regional parties. But Modiji changed the whole game by making Droupadi Murmu a candidate. Despite being a new name, Droupadi Murmu is a dedicated tribal leader of her area, an experienced minister of Odisha, and a successful governor of Jharkhand. Therefore, the candidature of Yashwant Sinha became very weak in front of her. Even the proponent, Mamata Banerjee, found it difficult to oppose Droupadiji. Even before this, Mamata was not ready at the time of Pranab Mukherjee’s election, but when the question of Bengal’s prestige came, she had to accept Pranab Da at the last moment.
In fact, Narendra Modi has been preparing since the beginning, keeping in mind the far-reaching political and national goals and keeping his intentions very patiently confidential. His footsteps are extremely difficult to predict. Similarly, senior leaders of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh who support the BJP and selected loyal campaigners are engaged in active service campaigns among people in different states, rural forest dwelling areas, and northeastern states. In a way, they are silently engaged in arranging land, manure, water, and light for the political success of the BJP.
Modi’s efforts to take his victory chariot to non-BJP ruled states like Odisha, Telangana, Andhra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, make new agreements, and make a strong image of India at the international level too to serve political, social, and economic interests, will thus meet with success.
The author is editorial director of ITV Network India News and Aaj Samaj Dainik.