The new President
Madam Pratibha Patil became the 13th person to reside in the Rashtra pati Bhavan, like all presidents she too heads the country and mascots the democracy of the nation but her presidential tenure is historical in many other ways. Not only is she is the first women president but more than that this is the first time that the presidential elections were brought down to the level of a street fight with mud slinging comments and strategic unfolding of controversies. The last part of monarchy that we still linger on to justifies the post of the president, the president is considered to be a philosopher king but after 60 years of democracy the country seemed to be without many options to fill in the shoes of “the president”. The nomination of Pratibha Patil raised a significant question especially amongst the non Maharastrians, Who is she? And in the effort to answer the same BJP spilt the beans of her career and her associates elaborating every single flaw. Media too created an entire campaign to try and chase away the inevitable victory of Pratibha Patil, they diged into her career and brought out cases that were pending from the loans that her banks did not pay to the brother who was in a murder case. BJP spent more time and energy trying to make UPA’s candidate look bad than to strengthen its own candidate. Jayalalithaa went on to feel sad at the manner in which the presidential election was being held, the media played the tape of Patil’s comments on the veil and the reporters repetitively covered the bank sites which were once run by her, but despite all that Patil won the presidential election by a margin of 300,000 votes from the next candidate, who was the vice president few days back.So is it that UPA’s choice has become the order for all or is that we as a nation faced shortage of candidates for the president’s post or is it that Patil received what she deserved we simply made no efforts to understand her? Today the largest democracy in the world is headed by a woman and this fact does illuminate the empowerment of females in the country, she may or may not prove to be a rubber stamp but she will defiantly be an icon for those who devalued being a female in the country isn’t it then fair to give her a chance to prove herself. Her career graph shows a life well spent in promoting education and employment amongst females .She along with her husband opened many schools like Vidya Bharati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal , which runs a chain of schools and colleges in Jalgaon and Mumbai , she also set up Shram Sadhana trust that runs hostels for working women in new Dehli , Mumbai and Pune, and an engineering college in Jalgaon . She also founded and was the chairwomen of a cooperative sugar factory known as Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana and a cooperative bank named after her self as Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank. She also helped setting up an industrial training school for the visually challenged in Jalgaon and running a school for the visually impaired children of Vimukta Jatis and Normadic tribes. The philanthropic foundations and her political career both grew together, she was working for females, visually impaired and poor but at the same time she was firm in her foot holds of power and position , at the age of 27 she started her political career , by winning the assembly election from Edlabad constituency on national congress ticket and after her re-election , in 1967 she became a deputy minister for education . a trained lawyer from Government college of Law , Mumbai. Patil represented Edlabad constituency in Jalgaon district as a member of the Maharastra legislative assembly (1962-1985) and was deputy chairwomen of the Rajya Sabha (1986-1988), Member of Parliament from Amravati in the Lok Sabha (1991-1996) and the 24th and the first women governor of Rajasthan Although its not that it is fair to paint a picture Patil without adding the recently probed investigations but why Were all these scams not realized when she was the Governor or Member of Parliament or member of Rajya Sabha? It seems obvious that like most politicians today she too has streaks of corruption and kin first ness but her winning the election is a testimony of how the real men and women of the nation are away from the political spectrum and how prestigious posts are held only on the basis of Indira Loyality.
