NEW DELHI: A Contest for the President ship now seems inevitable. V.P. Singh’s insistence on supporting only a Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe candidate for the coming Presidential elections has thrown a spanner in Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Raos efforts to choose the President by consensus.
The former Prime Minister said that he was willing to back even a Congress candidate if the ruling party nominated a Dalit for the job. But few political observers believe that Rao will choose the Presidential candidate on the basis of caste particularly after several Congress leaders have sharply attacked Singh for his in transience
Janata Dal sources said that Singh was quite adamant on the party’s adopting a formal resolution that the Presidential candidate be a member of the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. The matter is to come up for formal discussion on June 11 when the party’s Central Parliamentary Board meets in New Delhi Some Janata Dal leaders like Bu Patnaik may oppose the demand but indications are that Singh will be able to carry the bulk of his party with him; he will then not need to carry out his threat of resigning his Lok Sabha seat if the party failed to endorse his stand on the issue.
In the next few days the efforts to arrive at a consensus on the Presidential candidate may suffer another jolt. The Forum of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Parliamentarians which was the first to demand a Dalit President will meet for an extended two-day session on June 16 in which MLAs and MLCs are also to participate. Although the Presidential election is not on the agenda Forum sources said that it was bound to come up. They said there is great possibility of the Forum passing a formal resolution calling on all parties to support a Dalit as the next President
Both V.P.Singh and Ram Vilas Paswan one of the leading lights of the Forum are willing to take their fight for a Dalit President to its logical conclusion. In separate statements the two leaders joined issue with Minister for Water Resources C.Shukla for describing the demand for a Dalit President as evidence of “mental bankrupted.” They reminded Shukla that the demand had been originally voiced by 106 MPs belonging to almost all political parties and asked whether he would go on to call all the 106 monetary bankrupt.
Singh and Paswan are obviously hoping that their demand will be taken up by Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe MPs and MLAs in all political parties and that a strong pressure group can yet be built on. Although they themselves do not believe that they will be finally able to force the election of a Dalit as the next President there is already talk of issuing an appeal for a “conscience vote” on the lines of Indira Gandhis call in the 1969 presidential election when she had fielded V-V.Girl against the official Congress nominee Sanjiva Reddy.
What remains to be seen is the effect this will have on the National Front-Left Front alliance.
The Left leaders have expressed strong disapproval of Singhs insistence on making caste a factor in the election to the high office. But a discussion on the issue may be postponed till CPM General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet returns from his month-long foreign tour.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 19, 1992
