The Presidential election is important not so much for who will win, but for the number of votes the two candidates are likely to get. After all, the result is a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately, the campaign so far has been listless, with the two candidates merely stating their positions. The joint opposition nominee, Yashwant Sinha, has reiterated that he would not be a rubber-stamp president. True, the President of India has to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers. He does not enjoy any power to act independently of the advice of the Cabinet. Of course, he enjoys the power to counsel the government on all issues. He also has the power to return a Bill for reconsideration by Parliament if he thinks that it is not in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution or established laws. Once, the Bill is resubmitted after due consideration by the legislature, he has no option but to give his assent. As the first citizen of the country, he also reserves the right to caution the nation if he finds that certain trends in national political life could be dangerous in the long run.
Yashwant Sinha began his campaign on a hopeful note. But it now looks like that he is not even the joint opposition candidate. At least eight opposition parties have distanced themselves from his candidature. He began his campaign from Kerala where he was expected to get 100 per cent votes, as both the LDF and the UDF support him. As the Janata Dal led by former prime minister Deve Gowda has spoken in favour of the BJP nominee, Droupadi Murmu, its MLAs in Kerala may not support Sinha. As the electoral college stands today, Murmu is in an advantageous position. In contrast, Sinha has not been able to get the unstinted support he expected from Bihar where he was born and Jharkhand where his political life began by winning the Hazaribagh Lok Sabha seat. Sinha may be more well-known than Murmu but that does not make him a stronger candidate. At 84, he is older than Murmu by one generation, but she has relatively better credentials as a public person. True, Murmu was all through a BJP person. She never wavered in her allegiance to the party and she did justice to whatever job she was entrusted with. Maybe she did not intervene when riots occurred in Kandhamal when she was a minister in the BJP-Biju Janata Dal government. But when she was appointed governor in Jharkhand and she was presented with two Bills which she found ran counter to the interests of the tribals, she had the political courage to reject them. It showed that she had a mind of her own. It is also a measure of her capability that the BJP toyed with the idea of fielding her as its candidate against Meira Kumar, as she herself disclosed recently. Probably, the BJP thought that it was not right to field a tribal woman against a Scheduled Caste candidate. In any case, age was on her side. Of course, it is not the first time that a tribal is contesting for the highest post. It was PA Sangma, a tribal from Meghalaya, who was fielded against Pranab Mukherjee. It is a different matter that nobody considered it as a contest between a tribal and a Brahmin. Things are, of course, different now as caste and religion assume greater importance than was the case in the previous presidential elections.
Of course, experience-wise Sinha is better positioned. A former IAS officer, he had a meteoric rise in politics occupying the post of finance minister. Unfortunately, he lost much of his credibility when he showed readiness to jump from one party to another. Once a great secularist, he had no compunction in joining the BJP where his son remains as a Union minister. He landed in the Trinamool Congress after trying his luck elsewhere when he realised that Narendra Modi had no use for him. And when the Congress and the Left parties wanted him to quit the TMC, he did so within minutes. So much for his allegiance to ideology! Incidentally, he was not the Opposition’s first candidate, and was offered the ticket only after Farooq Abdullah and Gopal Gandhi expressed their reluctance to contest. Much can be said on both sides. The point is how the person chosen for the post conducts himself or herself. Murmu was shown sweeping the floors of a temple, in a video that went viral. That is her faith. Her election will certainly be a morale-booster for millions of tribals who are the most exploited sections in the country. Once elected by the people of India, she will be second to none. She should conduct herself in this manner alone.
