Former Presidents

	DR. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (b - 1931) Term of Office: 25 July 2002 TO 25 July 2007
	Shri K. R. Narayanan (1920-2005) Term of Office: 25 July 1997 TO 25 July 2002
	Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918-1999) Term of Office: 25 July 1992 TO 25 July 1997
	Shri R Venkataraman (1910-2009) Term of Office: 25 July 1987 TO 25 July 1992
	Giani Zail Singh (1916-1994) Term of Office: 25 July 1982 TO 25 July 1987
	SHRI NEELAM SANJIVA REDDY (1913-1996) Term of Office: 25 July 1977 TO 25 July 1982
	Dr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905-1977) Term of Office: 24 August 1974 TO 11 February 1977
	Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri (1894-1980) Term of Office: 3 May 1969 TO 20 July 1969 and 24 August 1969 TO 24 August 1974
	Dr. Zakir Husain (1897-1969) Term of Office: 13 May 1967 TO 3 May 1969
	Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975) Term of Office: 13 May 1962 TO 13 May 1967
	Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963) Term of Office: 26 January 1950 TO 13 May 1962

Faith in Rama vs faith in Sonia

S. Gurumurthy

Not everything seems to be going well- in fact everything seems to be going wrong - for the rationalist protagonists of Rama Sethu - Sethusamudram project. How is it that the canal project, which was doing so well last month, is now struggling for survival?

Those who are familiar with the case narrate this story: When all was going well for the protagonists of the canal project, with the Supreme Court about to dismiss the writ petition against the project, the Central Government filed that infamous affidavit on September 12, 2007, in which it had denied that Rama of Ramayana ever existed. It triggered a tsunami of public anger that compelled the government to withdraw the affidavit and to put on the withdrawal memo the government's respect for the religious sentiments of the Hindus particularly in this case. Moving further to ease the popular anger the Central Government also gave an undertaking to the Court that it would consider realigning of the canal so as not to disturb the Rama Sethu. This virtually put a brake on all further work on the project.

But Dr Karunanidhi's lectures on Rama and Ramayana that commenced on September 15 at Erode and continued in Chennai on September 18 and 19 ensured that anger aroused by the affidavit did not die down. He questioned the existence of Rama and the truth of Ramayana; trivialised Rama by asking where did that Rama learn his engineering to build the Rama Sethu; characterised the revered deity of millions of Hindus as a drunkard. This was the last straw. If there was one reason that turned the project so controversial perhaps to the extent that it will be impossible to proceed with, it was the anxiety of the secular protagonists of the Sethusamudram project to set up the saviours of Rama Sethu against the Court as they had successfully done in the case of the Ayodhya issue earlier by setting the Ram Temple movement against the judiciary.

The September 12 affidavit was motivated to this end. Had the state forced the Court to consider the affidavit and rule that Rama was a myth, the Court, not the state, would be the target of those who revered Rama. This was the diabolical intent of the authors of the affidavit. What they failed to understand was that in Ayodhya, the fault lines were clear: Ram temple versus Babri Masjid, Hindus versus Muslims and pseudo-secularism versus secularism. Such clear faultlines were absent in the Sethusamudram project.

Actually those who wanted the Rama Sethu saved were struggling to get their views across to those who believed in Rama till the secular government stepped in to help them by filing the affidavit and Dr Karunanidhi supplemented that by his campaign against Rama himself. The DMK leader perhaps rightly staked his entire political reputation to push the project. But, he could well have done this without positioning himself as if he were a Ravana of today against the Rama of yesteryears. It was his tactless targeting of Rama himself that has landed the project in distress as in Poseidon adventure.

If the affidavit was the first goof-up, and Karunanidhi's tirade against Rama and Ramayana was the second debacle, the UPA effort to mobilise the people through the bandh effort on October 1, turned out to be the third, and the worst fiasco. All have helped sink the controversial project even deeper in the trisea waters.

The latest DMK-led UPA action to urge the Centre to expedite the Sethusamudram canal project proudly started off as a bandh, turned into a strike after the Madras High Court order on Saturday and slipped into just a fast on the Supreme Court banning any stoppage of work and finally ended with the Chief Minister and his colleagues, who had asked millions not to go to work and prevented many more from attending work, being forced by an angry Supreme Court to suspend their fast and rush to work at Fort St George.

What an anti-climax and perverse outcome for the protagonists of the Sethu project! The entire Tamil Nadu government, industry, business, shops, schools, hospitals and trade was prevented from working, but the Chief Minister and his colleagues who had prevented them from working were forced to work! "Court sends DMK to work - Nervous Karunanidhi Breaks Fast". This was the front-page lead news on the fast observed by the UPA and DMK leaders in a leading daily with a large circulation in Delhi.

Not particularly known for distance from the ruling UPA regime and the Congress Party, the daily went on to report thus: "This dawn-to-dusk hunger strike did not even make it to noon. Chief Minister M Karunanidhi ended his fast and went back to work as soon as the word came of the Supreme Court saying President's rule should be imposed on Tamil Nadu." This is precisely what the ndtv.com and Rediff.com and chennaionline.com had all reported. Many other newspapers had reported that the Chief Minister inaugurated the fast and went to the secretariat.

But they did not say why did that person who had asked the entire state to duck work, go to the secretariat and work. It however does not need a seer to say why did the fast - which started obviously after breakfast and ended before lunch - ended so abruptly. The CM and his colleagues were terrified by the threat held out by the Supreme Court that Constitutional machinery had broken down in the state and that the Court would not mind asking the Central Government to dismiss the DMK government and impose Central rule. It did not take much time for the judges of the highest court to see through the game of those who were doing Gandhigiri in the name of the fast, to enforce, in effect, a bandh on the poor people of the state. This was precisely what the Court had specifically banned in its order on Sunday.

Thus the UPA fast, which had started off in a festive mood, sank into a funeral atmosphere by noon after the Supreme Court began to speak. With the judiciary declaring the bandh - cum- strike- cum- fast as illegal, the entire effort to expedite the Sethu canal has now turned into an issue between the judiciary and the protagonists of the Sethu canal (read the UPA government in the state and at the Centre). It must be said that Dr Karunanidhi behaved exemplarily, saying that he respected the judiciary and actually obeyed the court and went to work. But not his minions. T R Baalu, a Central minister, launched a tirade against the judiciary more than against those who dissented against the project, even saying the judiciary was corrupt! Reacting to the judicial threat to order the dismissal of the DMK government, Arcot Veerasamy, a minister in the state, expressed his faith that so long as two women, Sonia Gandhi and Pratibha Patil, held their positions, no one could dismiss the DMK government! So, even as those who want the Ramasethu protected repose faith in Rama and Court, the rationalist DMK seems to repose faith in Sonia (read Rome?) and Patil. The left groups have also attacked the judiciary. Result, the Rama Sethu- Sethusamudram which was an issue between those who wanted to protect the Rama Sethu and those who wanted the Sethu canal to cut through it, is now turning into an issue between the protagonists of the project and the judiciary.

QED: the saviours of the Ramasethu movement, who are believers, would turn stronger in their belief that the goof-ups of the protagonists of the canal project are the doings of Rama himself. But how would they - protagonists of the canal, who are non-believers -explain everything suddenly going wrong with the project that was doing so well just a fortnight ago?

Needed: A Lok Sabha Prime Minister

Kuldip Nayar

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's election to the Rajya Sabha was never in doubt. I do not know why he sought an entry into Parliament through the backdoor. The Rajya Sabha is the Upper House. A country's Prime Minister has to face the voters directly to assess his popularity. The Lok Sabha, the House of the People, is the right place for him. Manmohan Singh could have selected a safe seat if he feared that after having been Prime Minister for three years, his government's performance was not good enough to help him win a tough election. But he cannot use the Rajya Sabha as a stalking horse to hide his identity.

By evading the Lok Sabha election, Manmohan Singh is devaluing the office of Prime Minister. No Prime Minister since independence has tried to escape a Lok Sabha poll. Mrs Indira Gandhi, when made Prime Minister, was also a member of the Rajya Sabha. But she resigned and contested the first available byelection to the Lok Sabha. So did H.D. Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral, her successors. Both were Rajya Sabha members, but after they came to occupy the office of Prime Minister, they resigned their respective seats and contested the Lok Sabha election.

Manmohan Singh's election to the Rajya Sabha is from Assam. He has already given to the Supreme Court the proof of his residence in Guwahati on the basis of his ration card, electricity bill and the rent receipts of the house he occupies. It is not that he does not fulfil the qualifications to be a Rajya Sabha member, what is objectionable is that the country's Prime Minister has been elected indirectly. Whether Manmohan Singh comes from Assam, or Punjab which is his home state, is not as relevant an argument as the one that questions whether the Rajya Sabha legitimises his position. It is a House which comprises members who are elected indirectly. State Assembly members are the ones who face the electorate directly in their respective constituencies. A Prime Minister who represents the whole country is too tall to ride on their back, as Manmohan Singh is doing from the Assembly in Assam.

The question is a larger one: whether the Prime Minister should be a member of the Lok Sabha, the directly elected House, or of the Rajya Sabha, the indirectly elected House. There is nothing to beat about the bush on this. The choice is obvious. The Prime Minister has to win polls at the popular level. That means the Lok Sabha. There is no escaping this.

Our Constitution-makers may not have spelt out that the Prime Minister should be from the Lower House. But in their scheme of things, the Lok Sabha had a pre-eminent position. The Lok Sabha is the real House around which parliamentary activities revolve. This is the House which decides the fate of political parties and their allies. Even one vote shorter than the majority will be too short to sustain a government in power. This happened in the case of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government a few years ago. It lost by a solitary vote and had to leave office.

True, our Constitution has no provision which enjoins upon the Prime Minister to be a member of the Lower House. Pakistan has that. Even where there is no such provision, the parliamentary system practised all over the world is followed â€" that the Prime Minister must be a member of the elected House. Great Britain, which in a way is the mother of all Parliaments, has not had a Prime Minister from the Upper House, the House of Lords, for generations, and it will be ridiculous to imagine that Lord So-and-So can ever be a future Prime Minister of Britain.

While contesting for the Lower House, Manmohan Singh would have come in contact with people at the grass roots. The dust and din of electioneering might have made him think that politics is dirty, but it is real nevertheless. Sitting in the ivory tower that the Rajya Sabha is, the Prime Minister has missed the reservoir of information he would have gathered from the ground on how India's heart ticks. It is rather odd that the Indian Prime Minister has no vote in the House which decides on the motion of confidence in the government he leads.

I am afraid, if the importance of direct election is not underlined, even members of the Legislative Council, the second House, would like to make it to the office of the chief minister. At present, not all states have a Legislative Council. More than that, there is a precedent for the Legislative Assembly member to be the chief minister. Once, before the Constitution was introduced, Congress leader C. Rajagopalachari became chief minister in the then state of Madras. But rightly he had to quit a few months later. Since then the chief minister in the states has been from the Legislative Assembly.

I can understand Manmohan Singh's diffidence about contesting an election for the Lok Sabha, because some Congress bosses were responsible for his defeat when he contested the Lok Sabha polls a few years ago from South Delhi, a constituency of highly educated voters. Maybe he is afraid of sabotage, and is worried that he might meet the same fate once again, especially when some Congress leaders want to see the Prime Minister out. Yet it is far better to face them through election than to live under the illusion that they are behind him.

Many states will be willing to offer Manmohan Singh a Lok Sabha seat if he so decides. I am sure Punjab will want him from the state because he is a brilliant son of its soil. He just has to indicate that he so desires.  A sitting Lok Sabha MP from Punjab has told me that he is willing to vacate his seat for Manmohan Singh. The member does not belong to the Congress party. I concede that after the perverse judgment by the former Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal's bench, Manmohan Singh does not have to bother whether he is an "ordinarily resident" of Assam. The Supreme Court did away with the domicile qualification for a Rajya Sabha member. The judgment says that a Rajya Sabha member does not have to be a resident of the state whose Assembly returns him or her.

I do not want to question the case of eligibility, nor do I propose to discuss Chief Justice Sabharwal's judgment. I have no doubt that some day a larger bench will quash it, because the judgment defeats the very purpose of the Rajya Sabha, the Council of States. My point is a limited one. The Prime Minister has to be a member of the Lok Sabha because Lok Sabha is where sovereignty rests.

(Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle; May 21, 2007)

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Should the Prime Minister be a member of the Lok Sabha?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not contesting elections to the Lok Sabha, the lower and popular house of parliament.This is for reasons of health and also because the constitution permits the prime minister to be a member of either of the two houses of parliament.Like Singh, we have had prime ministers from the Rajya Sabha earlier but they sought to get elected to the lower house and succeeded easily.As the de facto head of the government, the prime minister is expected to earn people’s approval directly.Mayawati recently took a dig at Singh over the issue.”This Manmohan Singh has not contested any public election…he was brought back door in Rajya Sabha and made prime minister,” the Bahujan Samaj Party chief said at an election rally.”If Manmohan can become PM, why can’t an educated Dalit woman.”This is possibly the first instance in Indian politics where the sitting prime minister has decided to stay away from the race.But should India’s prime minister be a member of the Lok Sabha?The opposition, after initially trying to make it a poll issue, now seems to have lost the plot.The question keeps popping up on internet discussion boards.FOR– Those who support the idea of a prime minister from the lower house say that a popular vote marks acceptability by the people as compared to someone nominated to the Rajya Sabha.– Such a person having earned the people’s mandate is seen as less susceptible to manipulation.– A person’s performance as an MP is seen as a necessary test of his competence and claim to the top job.– Some even suggest that a prime ministerial candidate should seek election with a pre-announced team, something like the shadow cabinet system in Britain.AGAINST– The most convincing argument against the idea is that the constitution puts no such caveat.– The upper house is seen as a talent pool where competent candidates are sent after consideration. This compensates for impulsive behavior of voters which can sometimes make “good” candidates unelectable. For example, Manmohan Singh lost the 1999 Lok Sabha election from the posh South Delhi constituency.– It is also felt that any prime minister would work according to the party’s ideology, membership of a house being irrelevant to his policies and performance.– Moreover, the prime minister is in any case indirectly elected (by the party MPs), so the argument of his having greater acceptance may not cut much ice.– Some feel that if the person is a representative of the majority party and competent then nothing else should count. Others say the proposal calls into question the very rationale of having an upper house, and therefore, needs to be fleshed out.One comment on the online forum points to the question being a moral rather than a legal one.There are two facts to bear in mind.In the Westminster system of democracy, a prime minister from the upper house would be an anachronism.Secondly, the constitution review commission recognised the lower house’s pre-eminence in its recommendation that the prime minister be directly elected by the house in the event of a hung poll verdict.As for the practical aspect, the Congress is contesting around 400 seats in these elections, and finding a safe seat for a politician like Manmohan Singh, the sitting prime minister, should have been easy.In March, opposition leader L.K. Advani raised the issue at an election rally.”Singh will be more acceptable to the people of India if he decides to fight the elections and go to the Lok Sabha,” he said.Did Advani have a valid point?