Even as the media front-paged the UPA choice of Pratibha Patil for the office of the President of India, there was another - and a less noticed - news with a photograph on inside pages. The photo showed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh taking oath as Rajya Sabha member with the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in attendance. In these two developments, put together, inheres a political high risk, actually a constitutional danger. But to see this clearly, a curtain raiser is needed and that is provided by how the selection of candidates to the constitutional high office was handled by political forces, particularly the UPA.

The attention of most in the media was lost in interesting trivialities like how different names were shot down by one or the other, how Pratibha was chosen after a tortuous negotiation process and how it is Shekhawat vs Shekhawat scenario, disclosing for the first time that Pratibha is married to a Shekhawat in Rajasthan and other side-shows like that. But what emerged out of the trivials highlighted is that the Congress party's search for candidates for the high office was limited to names of those loyal to Sonia Gandhi. And that it did not even extend to loyal Congressmen.

The UPA game was between Sonia's choice and CPM's veto and CPM's choice and Sonia's veto. The Left vetoed Sonia loyalists like Shivraj Patil, Shinde and Karan Singh and Sonia vetoed CPM's Somnath. In desperation, the Left proposed Pranab Mukherjee, a loyal Congressman, but Sonia would not settle for anything less than a man loyal to her. With so many of her loyalists in in the queue, the Left game ended when the name of yet another of her loyalists, Pratibha's, was thrown at them in the dying moments. That name could not be vetoed as any one opposing her could be dubbed as anti-women - a label few can dare in politics.

The UPA search ended thus with the discovery of a candidate most loyal to Sonia and yet beyond veto by the Left. The choice of a party worker loyal to one political leader as the President of India is an unmitigated constitutional risk. But along with the other development - a Prime Minister once again elected to the Rajya Sabha - it turns into a constitutional danger. One constitutional office, the presidential chair, risks subordination to one person and the other constitutional office, the PMO, turns politically anaemic. A strong Prime Minister is a stable pole of the State. Already Manmohan Singh, as surprise a choice as PM in 2004 as Pratibha is for President now, is a political light weight with the political legitimacy explicitly vesting in Sonia Gandhi.

The first thing the Congress party - read Sonia - should have done to vest some political authority in him was to get him elected to the Lok Sabha like P V Narasimha Rao was elected from Behrampur after he became PM in 1991 by default like Dr Manmohan Singh in 2004. But it is as clear as day light that Sonia is not too keen to give him even the minimum political authority which his Lok Sabha entry would entitle him to. Result: a PM without political authority which is the very sinews of that office. And next, possibly, a President who will toe, in addition to one party's line, may be one person's line!

Compare the choice of Pratibha with the previous incumbents K R Narayanan and Abdul Kalam, the contrast will become obvious. Her choice reverses a very welcome trend in national politics since 1996 that led to the installation of these non-party dignitaries. And surprisingly Kalam also became the most popular President in recent times. The NDA, which wanted him as President again now, was caught in the 'no second term' rule it had designed in 2002 to deny a second term for K R Narayanan. This time around the Congress showed NDA's own rule book to NDA and ruled out Kalam. The result: today we have a constitutional office at the risk of political invasion by one or the other - with Pratibha on the one hand and Shekhawat on the other - the former being the favourite. In sum, a political light weight, declared as such by being elected to the Rajya Sabha again, as Prime Minister and the possibility of a Sonia loyalist becoming the President, together constitute a serious, constitutional danger. Comment:gurumurthy@epmltd.com

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, June 19, 2007