{"id":2192,"date":"2007-07-20T14:37:54","date_gmt":"2007-07-20T19:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2192"},"modified":"2007-07-20T14:38:46","modified_gmt":"2007-07-20T19:38:46","slug":"controversy-takes-shine-off-historic-indian-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2192","title":{"rendered":"Controversy takes shine off historic Indian candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Denyer, Reuters News Agency, 20 July 2007<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

NEW DELHI — It was billed as a proud and historic day for Indian women, as lawmakers voted yesterday to choose the country’s new president, with the winner widely expected to be, for the first time, a woman. But it has turned instead into a major embarrassment for the government.<\/p>\n

Pratibha Patil, the govering coalition’s 72-year-old nominee for the largely ceremonial post of president, was expected to sail through yesterday’s vote with relative ease against the opposition-backed challenger and current vice-president, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.<\/p>\n

But already, Ms. Patil has run into rougher waters than she or her supporters could have imagined.<\/p>\n

And the scandals that are now dogging her candidacy, along with her habit of putting her foot firmly in her mouth, threaten to undermine the post of president, analysts say.<\/p>\n

[Read the report<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pratibha Patil’s contested legacy<\/strong>
\nPriyanka Kakodkar, Dipti Agrawal, Tejas Mehta
\n Thursday, July 19, 2007<\/a> (Jalgaon, Mumbai)<\/p>\n

The roots of Pratibha Patil’s family and legacy can be traced back to Maharshtra’s Jalgaon.<\/p>\n

It is from here that Patil, a young lawyer and social activist, at the age of 28, won her first Assembly election and went on to serve as Cabinet minister in no less than six governments.<\/p>\n

But by mid-80s as Patil moved to national politics, her political stars dimmed. In 2004, there was political resurrection when she was appointed Governor of Rajasthan but it went almost unnoticed.<\/p>\n

No wonder this June when the 72-year-old was catapulted from political oblivion to the Presidential race, it took even UPA insiders by surprise.<\/p>\n

”We should come together and elect a woman candidate. Of course Pratibha Patil will win as UPA has the numbers,” said Vilasrao Deshmukh, Chief Minister, Maharashtra.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mired in controversies<\/strong><\/p>\n

The old-school Congressman, a staunch Gandhi family loyalist, is now within striking distance of becoming the country’s first woman President.<\/p>\n

But that legacy has been contested so fiercely and publicly that enter Jalgaon today and it’s hard to find a single member of her immediate family.<\/p>\n

All of them have been driven away, perhaps, by the raging controversies suddenly in the news.<\/p>\n

These include<\/p>\n