Once every five years, our country experiences an embroglio over who should be (s)elected as the First Citizen, i.e. the President of India. This year too, a lot of bandwidth, that of print, television, internet, and human mind as well is being used up over the discussion about who should be the next President of India, and why. The 3 key names in the fray are of Pratibha Patil, BhairoSinh Shekhavat and APJ Abdul Kalam. These 3 contenders have the respective advantages of being an eminent woman politician, experience, and being the role model of the country.
I shall not dwelve into the issue of which political party shall support which candidate and what reasons. We have heard, read and spoken a lot about that already. What I would like to dwelve over is what are the qualities that we are looking at, while selecting the first citizen of India.
Well, strategically or politically, the Indian President doesn’t have very high powers of decision. So, I don’t think its necessary to have someone with great experience in the political field. I think Presidency is an honour, a token of appreciation for the path-breaking work an individual has done, and an acknowledgement that inspite of being a supremo in his/her own field, the candidate has enough knowledge about the functioning of the country.
We need to see the President as someone with a vision, a vision of betterment of a country whose first citizen he/she is. Someone who can motivate the youth, and remind the elderly of their golden youth! He should have a clean reputation, keen civic sense, and ideally should have contributed enough to the country to bestow upon him the honour of being its first citizen. He should have enough knowledge of how the country runs( sounds as though it were a machine, but now speaking of it, isn’t it analogous to one, sans the human aspect??), no political/reginal/communal bias, and we, as a country should be proud to have him as our President.
So do any names strike your minds? NRN was in the race for some time, and yes, I feel he deserved to stay and win the race. For after all, he was second only to Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, according to me, the novel choice for the first citizen of India.
What say readers??
The Writing Block! 
You said it! There was a poll conducted sometime back by IBN Live website; and no points for guessing who won hands-down.
This article pretty much sums up the nation’s voice on this http://www.ibnlive.com/news/dear-mr-kalam-we-want-you-to-stay/top/41215-4.html
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Definitely think that Kalam should go in for another term. That man is definitely a true representative for all India stands and wants to be. He is a committed intellectual, has helped build India’s security system (thanks to which we have a strong and prospering economy), and has worked hard to be where he is today. He isn’t endowed with a political lineage and of special note is he takes interest in his presidential duties and powers! Not a puppet of a political party like some previous ones.
Moreover, he belongs to a minority community — it must have been difficult to over come poverty, small village/town mindset and to avoid the lure of lucrative overseas jobs when he was younger. yet he stayed back and it benefitted India as a whole.
Definitely my choice as a president.
What say?
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