On July 18, India will vote in the 16th presidential election that will decide the successor to President Ram Nath Kovind and the result will be announced on July 21. Hectic preparations and meetings were held by both sides, namely opposition parties combined and ruling NDA (National Democratic Alliance) partners. After NCP (National Congress Party) supremo Sharad Pawar and National Conference Chief Farooq Abdullah declined the offer, former West Bengal Governor and diplomat Gopal Krishna Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, also turned down opposition leaders’ request to contest the election. To decide on common candidate for the much discussed presidential election, NCP chief Sharad Pawar convened meeting of opposition leaders at the parliament annexe and they unanimously agreed on Yashwant Sinha’s name, who accordingly filed his nomination papers on June 27. Sinha, the veteran politician, had a long and distinguished career in public life before joining BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and served as Union Minister of Finance and External Affairs in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government. He was an able administrator and an accomplished parliamentarian.
Though NDA has sufficient number — approximately 50 per cent of electoral college — yet it did not lie idle and the BJP was contemplating on possible options before finally zeroing in on two names from a list of 20 potential candidates. First was that of former Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu, a woman, and the other was Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan. Murmu, a Santhal tribal from Odisha, was Jharkhand governor from 2015 to 2021 and prior to that Odisha MLA for two terms. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of Odisha and Biju Janata Dal leader who has served the state for more than two decades could not hide his joy when told of the decision and Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, himself a tribal too, should be jubilant though he did not express it openly because Jharkhand has substantial tribal population. Besides tribal majority states of North East (NE) India, there are significant percentage of tribals in West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telengana, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Arif Mohammad Khan, a vocal face and an intellectual of the Muslim community well-known in the Islamic world, has been defending BJP for many years on issues concerning minorities. During his student days at the Aligarh Muslim University, he was a very active union leader, and after joining Congress became Union Minister in Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet but resigned on the Shah Bano issue and later was minister in VP Singh government. Both had similar weightage but ultimately a tribal woman was the choice. There were tribal candidates like George Gilbert Swell and Purno Agitok Sangma from NE region who were experienced and capable contesting unsuccessfully presidency in the past. At last cherished dream of tribal communities in the country will come true as Murmu is a sure winner. BJP expects non-NDA and non-UPA parties like Naveen Patnaik’s BJD, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRC and AIDMK to vote for Murmu. Even Jharkhand’s JMM and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) have to think twice.