MEIRA KUMAR, THE CONGRESS CANDIDATE FOR the upcoming President of India election says her nomination by the Opposition “united” against the ruling National Democratic Alliance was a ‘matter of ideology and giving it a communal or caste colour was unfortunate.
If you don’t take it as the joke of the decade, you may ask:What is the ideology involved?
The NDA announced its candidate, Ram Nath Kovind, a Dalit (belonging to oppressed and downtrodden castes) first. Till then the “united” opposition was speaking in different voices. THEN it announced the name of Meira Kumar whose qualification is the daughter of Jagjivan Ram, for decades the face of the Dalits in the Congress.
Both caste and dynasty qualifications fulfilled.
Earlier the “united” opposition toyed with the idea of putting up Dr. M.S.Swaminathan, an eminent scientist and father of India;s green revolution. A victim of North-South politics when he was director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (popular as Pusa Institute) from 1972 to 1979, he became the Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (1982–88) which is located in Philippines by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN as India, the rightful claimant as the major rice-producing country, did not show interest and pursue the matter.