#MeiraKumarForPresident was trending on social media as soon as UPA announced its presidential candidate and given tit-for-tat to NDA. The 2017 presidential election will not end without a contest. And it will be a Dalit versus Dalit contest. Seventeen opposition parties announced that former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will be their joint candidate against the ruling NDA’s presidential nominee Ram Nath Kovind. Kumar’s candidature was announced by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi with Sharad Pawar seated next to her. After the announcement, Gandhi would appeal to all parties to back Kumar, hoping that other opposition parties will join her.
Meira Kumar, with an impressive political background, has been a five-time Member of Parliament. In 2009, she was elected as the first woman Speaker of Lok Sabha, replacing Somnath Chatterjee. Many claimed that her election was a political move by the Congress Party, pushing their image as pro-women, while also supporting the Dalit rights. Kumar went on to hold the role till 2014. Kumar was a Cabinet Minister in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment during Dr. Manmohan Singh’s government. She worked with the Indian Foreign Service also.
Born in 1945 in Patna, the 72-year-old Meira holds an LLB degree and a Masters in English Literature. In 1973, she joined the Indian Foreign Service and went on to work in the embassies of UK, Spain and Mauritius. Born to Indrani Devi (who was a freedom fighter) and the former Deputy Prime Minister, Babu Jagjivan Ram (a notable Dalit activist), Meira stepped into politics in 1985, with an intention to take her father’s political legacy forward. In the 11th and 12th Lok Sabha, Kumar contested from Karol Bagh’s constituency in New Delhi and became the Member of Parliament. It was in 2004 that she was absorbed into the Congress-led UPA government as a Cabinet minister. During Dr. Manmohan Singh’s second term, she served as the Union Minister for Water Resources. Based in New Delhi, Kumar is married to lawyer, Manjul Kumar.
Worried about cracks in the opposition over the NDA’s nominee, Ram Nath Kovind, the opposition selected Congress’s Kumar in a bid to woo back the JD(U) and ensure that BSP did not break away. The JD(U) said it would back Kovind, while the BSP had said it would not take a “negative” stand towards the candidature of a Dalit after the NDA announced their candidate was a Dalit from UP earlier this week. BSP supported the Opposition’s candidate, stressing that Meira Kumar was “more capable and popular” than Kovind. Sharad Pawar proposed the names of two other people — Kumar, ex-home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and former Planning Commission member Bhalchandra Mungekar. It was RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav who pitched for Kumar, as she hails from Bihar. Two things went in her favour, one that she belongs to the Congress and was selected by its chief Sonia Gandhi. Second, the fact that she was “the daughter of Bihar” would “impel Nitish Kumar to re-think his decision to support Kovind who comes from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, Ram Nath Kovind, fielded by the ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, filed nomination papers for President at Parliament House. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several top leaders of the BJP including party president Amit Shah accompanied Ram Nath Kovind. The battery of leaders were present including chief ministers of BJP/NDA ruled states and also the party chiefs of the alliance partners. PM Modi was the first proposer on Mr. Kovind’s nomination and union Home Minister Rajnath Singh second. Mr. Kovind filed three sets of nomination papers. Another set of nomination papers will be filed on the last day of filing nomination for the presidential election 2017. Every set of nomination papers has been signed by 60 leaders as proposers and 60 as seconders. Total 120 signatures have been put on each set of nomination papers for Ram Nath Kovind. This means 480 MPs/MLAs have signed the nomination papers of Mr. Kovind.
Besides the NDA’s constituents, which comprise over 48.6 per cent of votes in the electoral college that will elect the next president, regional parties such as the AIADMK, BJD, TRS and JD(U) have announced their support to the Dalit leader, making his win an almost foregone conclusion. As per the existing political equation, Kovind is guaranteed to get more than 61 per cent of the vote, and the final tally may increase depending on how some still-undecided regional parties vote.
Once elected, Kovind or Meira Kumar, they will be the second Dalits to occupy the highest constitutional office. The first was K R Narayanan, who was in the Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1997-2002. A low profile Dalit leader who held various organisational positions in the BJP, Kovind, 71, was made the Bihar Governor in 2015 after the NDA came to power in May 2014. The name of the two-term Rajya Sabha member did not figure among the probable but his nomination by the BJP is now being seen as a “political masterstroke”. He enjoys a clean reputation and has steered clear of any controversy in his over 26-year-old political career. His Dalit background makes him a sound political choice for the saffron party working overtime to woo Dalits.
Meira Kumar will file her nomination papers on June 27.
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