Dr. Abdul Kalam and his second term

Drama over Dr. Kalam's second term

When Dr. APJ Kalam was nominated to be the next President of India, I was pleasantly surprised. Being a student of science and a keen follower of developments in Indian Scientific community, I had heard about him a lot. When he became the president, of course, the entire nation loved him. Even in villages, where the kids don't know what the term "President" means, love him and adore him.

When I heard that they were looking for a new candidate this year, I was shocked, probably because I was naive enough to believe that Sonia Gandhi and the Congress would act on the best interests of the nation. How wrong I was. It is so sad that petty politics has spoiled a great human being continuing as the president of India.

What irked me most was the behavior of two self-appointed custodians of Tamil Culture.

• Mr. Karunanidhi, the CM of Tamilnadu who of course would give his life to Tamil
• Dr. Ramadoss, the leader of Pattali Makkal Katchi, who will go to any length to protect the Tamil culture.

But there is something else. Both of them would do anything to protect their families' interests.

Being part of the UPA government, they could have easily made sure that Dr. APJ got a second term, who incidentally is a Tamil. But, no, they would not do that, because they have their own interests to protect. Karunanidhi wants his daughter to be a Cabinet minister in the central government and Ramadoss has his son already in the Cabinet. They would rather protect those positions rather than have a Tamil as a President. It is so sad that these are considered to be the guardians of Tamils and Tamil Culture.

However, I was initially surprised - pleasantly, I should add, that the Third Front decided to choose him as their candidate. But knowing a little bit about how the madam (Ms. J. Jayalalitha) acts on the "interests of nation", it took a while to understand what was happening.

The third front knew that its candidate has no chance of winning the presidential election. So, they came up with Dr. APJ's name as he is very popular. And, now no one has anything to lose, except Dr. APJ. Let us look at the scenario.

Third Front will gain no matter what:

• If everyone accepts Dr. APJ, the third front takes credit.
• If the Congress refuses (it will surely), then they can blame Congress for not acting in the interests of country and JJ will use this against Karunanidhi as he has failed to support a Tamil president. :)

BJP has nothing to lose:

• If Dr. APJ wins (which is not possible), it will be only if the BJP supports his candidacy. Therefore, it will gain credibility, especially because BJP nominated Dr. APJ in the first place.
• If Dr. APJ loses, of course, BJP has nothing to lose as it didn't propose his name now and he would lose only if Congress says no. So the blame will be on Congress.

Congress will gain, but at what cost:

• Congress cannot accept Dr. APJ for three reasons.

1. He has rubbed them the wrong way during the Office of Profit bill issue and Sonia Gandhi has not forgotten the snub yet. She does not want Dr. APJ for a second term.
2. Accepting the third front's candidate is akin to saying that we messed up big time. And the Congress is not going to do that.
3. Also that would make these regional parties (in the third front) very credible in their respective states. And, Congress and the regional parties who are their allies will not want that.

• Since the Congress, with its allies, has enough votes to get their candidate selected comfortably, it does not matter even if the public opinion turns against it. As Steve Waugh famously pointed out once, "The world remembers only the winners and not how they won", sooner or later people will forget all these and move on.

Then the losers are:

• Unfortunately one of the losers will be Dr. APJ. His credibility will be under attack and people will start telling that he has become power-hungry.
  
• And of course, we are the greatest losers. We know exactly what we want, but absolutely can't do anything about it. Instead, we have to sit and listen patiently to people like Lallu Prasad Yadav advising Dr. APJ that he should resign gracefully.

May LORD God have mercy on India for its sorry state.