Pratibha has wide acceptance

NEW DELHI: Glossing over controversies surrounding Pratibha Patil, the CPM has come out to defend the UPA’s presidential candidate. The party said that Ms Patil fulfilled the Left’s criteria and has a “wide acceptance” for the job among political parties.

In a desperate attempt to shift the spotlight away from Ms Patil, the CPM appears to be following the Congress’ line of targeting the rival alliance and even the incumbent in Rashtrapati Bhavan A P J Abdul Kalam. Accusing the NDA of being “inconsistent” in claiming that they were no consulted and so will not support Ms Patil, the CPM said that last time the NDA had decided to field Mr Abdul Kalam it had approached others seeking consensual support.

Since Dr Kalam was a BJP nominee, the Left put up its own candidate Capt Lakshmi Sehgal. The BJP had also refused support to incumbent K R Narayanan on the ground that no President of the country apart from Rajendra Prasad had served a second term.

The CPM criticised Mr Kalam for putting the condition that he would contest only with certainty of victory. “It is unusual in a democratic election”. The CPM said he “should have gracefully relinquished office as all his previous illustrious predecessors had done.”

The editorial in the CPM mouthpiece, People’s Democracy, released on Thursday said the Left had set the criteria that the future President should be a person well versed with political complexities of the present times, should have impeccable secular credentials and should be a person capable of maintaining the balance between the executive, legislature and the judiciary as mandated by the Constitution.