Narayanan next President

Both Kesri and Naidu came to the Andhra Bhavan meeting armed with authorisations from the Congress and the UF respectively on Narayanan8217;s name. The UF had already decided on Narayanan8217;s name after the Left parties put pressure on the rest of the ruling coalition8217;s constituents. Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, whose name was taken up by a section of the Karnataka Janata Dal as a possible candidate, told the UF Steering Committee meeting tonight that he was not in the race.

Following this clarification, the UF formally agreed on Narayanan. The CWC meeting too took a similar line but in the traditional Congress method. The CWC authorised Kesri to take a decision on the party nominee for the Presidentship. A majority of the Congress leaders were privately backing Narayanan but took no official line on this.

Party deputy leader in the Lok Sabha G Venkatswamy, whose SC-ST Forum had passed a resolution stressing on an SC candidate, had also put pressure in the past few weeks on this score. Eventually, Kesri was to say the final word to Naidu. Apparently the Congress walked the thin line of not officially declaring their nominee as the party did not want to be seen as sponsoring Narayanan.

The Vice President will be a joint candidate for the Presidency of the Congress and the UF, the first time that a President will be sponsored by two parties together. In 1977, the Janata Party had proposed the name of Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy which was then agreed to by the Congress, also in the Opposition then.

Narayanan thus has the immediate backing of 69.5 per cent of the vote in the electoral college which will vote for the President. The Congress commands 30.2 per cent and the UF constituents have about 39.7 per cent. The BJP, the main Opposition party currently, has 30.5 per cent of the vote. It is expected that with tonight8217;s development, the BJP too will back Narayanan who will then assume office unanimously. The recent controversy over the choice of the next President thus comes to an end. For a while there was speculation that Shanker Dayal Sharma, whose term ends on July 24, might want a second term. Gowda8217;s name floated briefly and among the other aspirants were Karan Singh and T N Seshan. All these names are now irrelevant for the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Pleas against Presidential poll dismissed

The Supreme Court today dismissed two public interest petitions challenging the June 5 presidential ordinance amending provisions of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Act 1952 by which the number of proposers for candidates was raised from 10 to 50.

The petitions were dismissed by a vacation bench comprising Justice S C Sen and Justice S P Kurdurkar.

8220;The amendments have been brought about on the recommendations of the Election Commission to weed out non-serious candidates and there is nothing wrong about it. We do not find any merit in these petitions,8221; the judges observed before passing the dismissal order.

Earlier, the petitioners had contended that the right to contest elections to these offices was a fundamental right and the amendments imposed unreasonable restrictions which debarred citizens from contesting the elections.

They further contended that with these amendments only political parties with sufficient number of electors MPs and MLAs could sponsor candidates for contesting the elections.