The Hindu Business Line : Facing the moment of truth

No amount of care and caution will be too much in ensuring that the election to the highest office in the land is kept free from any kind of unsavoury controversy.

It is an office which sets the standards for every other institution, and the person holding it should be fit to be the role model for the citizens of the country, able to command the respect of the rest of the world.It will be unwise as well as escap ist to brush aside even the slightest blemish in the candidate’s credentials as inconsequential.

It will be equally so to attribute the doubts raised about the candidate’s good sense and judgment to political mudslinging. It will be all the more so to obstinately persist in an inadvisable course ignoring the damage to national interest being caused thereby. To err is human, and those who have the courage to acknowledge and rectify it will go up tremendously in the esteem of the people of the country. These considerations apply to a great extent to the Indian National Congress nurtured by Mahatma Gandhi. It cannot be false to the values and ideals he stood for.

At the height of his first Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience movement, which was making a nation-wide impact, he called it off just because a mob in an obscure place in Bihar indulged in violence against his stern dictate. He did not hesitate to admit his ‘Himalayan blunder’ of not adequately preparing the people to follow his precepts.

Today, the UPA-Left combine, with the Congress as its driving force, is facing its moment of truth. The candidate it has set up for the nation’s highest office is proving to be a big embarrassment.

One can straightaway concede that this may not be of its making or seeking. It may well be that the combine has nominated Ms Pratibha Patil with the best of intentions.

Certainly, India would have covered itself with glory by having a woman as President. Being a party loyalist is no sin, so long as the person, once elected, lives up to the fundamental principles of the Constitution and adheres to the canons of impartiality and fairness.

Noblest course

That a candidate has not been in the public eye, or has a humble or provincial background, is most emphatically not a disqualification.

History has examples such as Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, who had obscure origins but grew into the job and are reckoned among the greats. There was nothing wrong, either, for a candidate to have set up and run sugar factories or cooperative banks.

But it is entirely another matter altogether if inspection reports of the Reserve Bank of India and other credible sources bring to light not just mismanagement but transactions, such as waiver of huge amounts of loans advanced to close relatives and misuse of the funds for purposes other than envisaged.

The nature of transactions, the long periods during which they took place and the number of relatives involved are such that it would be untenable for anyone associated with these outfits to claim that they all took place without his/her knowledge.

Even assuming, at the very least, that without herself being culpable, Ms Patil was blind to the goings-on, it shows her in a light that is not entirely of the stuff Presidents are made.

To add to all this, are the accusations made, not by the Opposition parties, but by Congresspersons, implicating her brother in a murder case. In the Indian cultural context, this is bound to detract from the prestige of the post.

The noblest course for Ms Patil, in these circumstances, is to voluntarily and graciously withdraw from the contest.

B. S. RAGHAVAN