NEW DELHI, June 14: Forty years after it elected a woman as perhaps its most powerful prime minister ever, India appeared to be bracing on Thursday to have its first woman president next month.

Parliament deputies and state legislators will vote for the nation's highest constitutional office on July 19 and results will be announced on July 21.

The name of Mrs Pratibha Patil, Governor of the opposition ruled

Rajasthan state, as the ruling coalition's official candidate was announced by Congress president Sonia Gandhi after intense day-long consultations with her leftist allies. They had earlier rejected as not adequately secular the names of Home Minister Shivraj Patil and former Kashmir ruling scion Karan Singh.

Mrs Patil first became minister in the Maharashtra Congress government in 1967. That was a year after Indira Gandhi became the country's first and only woman prime minister so far in 1966. Thursday's announcement ends the hopes for Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee to take the highest office.

It also made it difficult for the opposition's as yet unofficial candidate, the current Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, to hope for a surprise win against the ruling UPA's candidate. Ms Patil's husband also carries a Shekhawat surname, although she is herself a Maratha politician from Maharashtra.