Too many claimants

Perhaps it's time now to put up a board saying: Queue here for vice-presidentship''. Since it is certain that the next President will be ...

Perhaps it8217;s time now to put up a board saying: 8220;Queue here for vice-presidentship8221;. Since it is certain that the next President will be K.R. Narayanan, all eyes are now focused on the vice-president8217;s chair.

What8217;s more, all the hats seem to be heading in that direction too, with the number of prospective candidates growing by the day. Every corner of the country, each major ethnic, religious or caste grouping and both gender categories have claimants to the post. At this rate, by the time the vice-president does get elected, there could even be candidates from every mohalla in the country.

In fact, the kind of lobbying that is presently going on for the vice-president8217;s chair is more suited to the politics of a society club.

It8217;s all rather sordid and degrading and does little to uphold the traditions of an august office.

While there is a tendency to underplay the role of the vice-president in Indian politics, it may be worthwhile to remind the political class that the person so elected is just a heart beat away from presidency. When the country8217;s fifth President, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, died in office it was the then vice-president B.D. Jatti who had to officiate as President for a spell of about six months before Sanjiva Reddy was sworn in as President.

There are also clearly defined Constitutional provisions which state that when a President is unable to discharge his functions owing to absence, illness or any other cause, it is the vice-president who shall discharge them.

During this period, the acting President is entitled to all the powers and immunities of the official President. Besides, there is the indisputable fact that, more often than not, it is the vice-president who becomes the President in due course.

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Such was the case with stalwarts like S. Radhakrishan, Zakir Husain, V.V. Giri, R. Venkataraman, S.D. Sharma, and now K.R. Narayanan. So it needs to be reiterated that bringing petty politics to the post of vice-presidency severely undermines its authority.

This does not mean that the post has not been politicised in the past. R. Venkataraman in his autobiography, My Presidential Years, recalls his unease over the tension that surfaced between President Zail Singh and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during the mid-1980s. By October 1986, Rajiv Gandhi was dropping broad hints to him that he would be nominated the next President. As things turned out, by July 1987, Venkataraman found himself in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

But too close a nexus between the political party in power and the President/vice-president bodes ill for the independence of a person upon whom the executive power of the Union is officially vested and who is sometimes required to check the excesses or misdemeanours of those in authority. The current spectacle of Najma Heptullah woman/minority 8212; Muslim being pitted against Margaret Alva woman/minority 8212; Christian, with names like Karan Singh, P.C. Alexander, Baliram Bhagat and P.A. Sangma being thrown in for good measure only serves to demean further the vice-presidential office.