June 17, 2002	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 5, 1423

NEW DELHI: With the wide spectrum of political opinion supporting Dr Abdul Kalam, it almost seems certain that the ‘Missile Man’ will be elected as the President of India on July 15.

This is rather a surprise, as the eminent space scientist and the father of India’s space programme was catapulted to the presidential poll virtually as a dark horse by most political parties when Mulayam Singh had floated his name as a potential candidate.

Mulayam Singh had been familiar with the qualities of head and heart of Dr Kalam as the scientific advisor of the defence ministry.

Dr Kalam had been crowded out by a host of candidates for the presidency. There was K.R Narayanan, whose name had been sponsored by the Congress and the Left parties, for a second term. There was also Dr P.C Alexander who had the support of the Congress leader, Sharad Pawar and Krishna Kant, the present vice- president and former governor of Andhra Pradesh, whose claim to succeed Narayanan had been sponsored by Chandra Babu Naidu, the leader of the Telugu Desam Party.

For a variety of reasons, none of them were universally acceptable.

For instance, Narayanan was unacceptable to the BJP which made it clear almost immediately after Sonia Gandhi had approached him with the request that he should be a candidate for another term in the presidency.

Dr Alexander was opposed by the Congress because it felt that Pawar had put forward his name with a view that if elected he would scuttle Mrs Gandhi’s chances of becoming prime minister on the ground that both president and prime minister cannot be Christians.

And for Krishna Kant, it was not prominent enough to warrant such a promotion.

Thus Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee came up with the name of Mulayam Singh’s nominee, Dr Abdul Kalam. The Congress was unable to oppose his name.

Meanwhile, while Narayanan had himself refused to be a candidate for second term in office, the Congress was left with no choice but to support Abdul Kalam.

For the BJP it had been a matter of satisfaction that a Muslim had been found acceptable. Though a Muslim, he is as much a Hindu as it was possible for him. A vegetarian, he is well-versed in the Hindu lore and is a scholar in Tamil.

The choice was, however, unacceptable to the Communist spokesman who was insistent that Dr Kalam had been a nominee primarily because of the BJP and so he had to be opposed.

It therefore chose Dr Lakshmi Sehgal as its nominee. They recognized that she would lose, but on an ideological level it found it necessary to make its views registered.