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Pratibha Devisingh Patil (born December 19, Jalgaon, 1934) is an Indian Congress politician who is the frontrunner to become the next President of India on 19 July 2007. A lawyer by training, she is the 16th Governor of Rajasthan and its first woman governor. She is a former deputy chairperson of the upper house of Parliament, Rajya Sabha (1986-88).
Earlier, from 1962 to 1985 Pratibha Patil was elected continuously to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, representing several constituencies from Jalgaon District. From 1991-96, she was Member of Parliament from Amravati. Notably, she has never lost an election that she had contested in.
Early life
Pratibha Patil was born into a Rajput family to Narayan Rao in Nadgaon, Maharashtra. She completed her M.A. from M.J. College, Jalgaon, and obtained a Law Degree from the Government Law College, Mumbai. During her college days, she excelled in table tennis, winning shields in inter-college tournaments.In 1962, Pratibha Patil was voted “College Queen” of Mooljee Jaitha (MJ) College in Jalgaon. The same year, she got the Indian National Congress ticket to the Assembly election from Jalgaon constituency and went on to win the election with a huge margin.
She married educator Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat on July 7, 1965. The couple has a son and a daughter. Together with her husband, she set up an educational institute, Vidya Bharati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, which runs a chain of schools and colleges in Jalgaon and Mumbai. She has also set up hostels for working women in New Delhi and Mumbai, an engineering college for rural youths in Jalgaon. She also founded and is the chairperson of a sugar factory in Jalgaon.She was also involved in setting up an Industrial Training School for the blind in Jalgaon and running a school for poor children of Vimukta Jamatis & Nomadic Tribes.
Political career
Pratibha Patil joined politics at an early age, and won her first elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from Jalgaon in 1962. At the age of 27, she was among the youngest[citation needed MLAs at the time. Under the mentorship of senior Congress leader and ex-Chief Minister Yashwantrao Chavan, she became a deputy minister for education after re-election in 1967 (in the Vasantrao Naik ministry). In her next terms (1972-78) she was a full cabinet minister for the state. In successive congress governments, she handled the portfolios of tourism, social welfare and housing under several chief ministers, Vasantdada Patil, Babasaheb Bhosle, S. B. Chavan and Sharad Pawar, gaining a reputation for competence. She was continually re-elected to the assembly, either from Jalgaon or the nearby Edlabad constituencies, until 1985, when she was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a congress candidate.
Post-Emergency Indira loyalist
In 1977, the Congress party split up after Indira Gandhi’s defeat following the Emergency. Many senior leaders of state Congress(I) , including Pratibha’s mentor Chavan and his protege Sharad Pawar, as well as much of the rank and file joined the Congress (Urs) party floated by Devraj Urs. However, Pratibha preferred to remain with Indira Gandhi, though it verged on inviting political ridicule. This act of loyalty to the Gandhi family would be remembered later by Rajiv Gandhi and subsequently, Sonia Gandhi. In 1978, when the Congress(Urs) (later National Congress Party) came to power in Maharashtra, she became Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly.
In 1980, the Congress(I) swept back into power, and her name was considered a front-runner for the Chief Ministership. However, the post went to Sanjay Gandhi’s confidant A. R. Antulay., who was forced to resign shortly on corruption charges. Subsequently, she became a minister again in the Vasantdada Patil ministry. Following differences between Patil and the-then Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Prabha Rau, Rajiv Gandhi appointed her as MPCC chief (1988-90).
Tenure at Centre
In 1985, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha, and was elected deputy chairperson from November 1986 to November 1988. Her term expired in April 1990. The following year, in the elections when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, she won from the seat at Amravati, her husband’s city, where he had once been mayor, thus joining the national parliament in the 10th Lok Sabha.
She has also served as Director of National Federation of Urban Co-operative Banks & Credit Societies and the Member of Governing Council, National Co-operative, Union of India.
Governor of Rajasthan
In November 2004, eight years after she had completed her term in the 10th Lok Sabha, Pratibha Patil was recalled from political hibernation to become the first woman Governor of Rajasthan. She was the second politician from Maharashtra in this post, the first being Vasantdada Patil. With Pratibha Patil as Governor, Rajasthan had women in three significant positions of power in the state, including Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Assembly Speaker Sumitra Singh.
In April 2006, the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly passed the Rajasthan Freedom of Religion Bill 2006 (originally titled as “Rajasthan Dharma Swatantrya Bill, 2006″). The objective of the bill was to control “unlawful conversion from one religion to another by allurement or by fraudulent means or forcibly.” However, some Christian organizations opposed the bill alleging that the bill was an outcome of the rightist policies of Sangh Parivar.. However, Pratibha Patil returned the bill unsigned, stating certain clauses in the Bill infringed on “the fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of conscience and freedom to profess, practice and propagate religion.”
The Government of Rajasthan re-sent the bill to her in May 2006 noting that similar anti-conversion laws enacted by Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa over 40 years ago were upheld by the Supreme Court of India and that the head of the Constituent Assembly, Dr B R Ambedkar, while drafting Article 25 of the Constitution had said that it would be best to leave it to the state legislatures to make laws to regulate conversions.. Pratibha then sent it to the President APJ Abdul Kalam for his opinion, and the bill is yet to be signed.
Nomination for Presidential Election 2007
On 14th June, United Progressive Alliance(UPA), the ruling alliance of political parties in India headed by Congress (I), and the Indian left nominated her as their candidate for the Presidential Election to be held on 19 July 2007.. She emerged as a compromise candidate after the Left parties would not agree to the nomination of present Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who is widely viewed as bordering on incompetence in this important post. At that point, Sonia Gandhi proposed Pratibha Patil’s name.
This makes her most likely to become the first female President of India. UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi described her nomination as a “historic occasion” in India’a 60th year of independence. Although NDA parties are yet to voice their support for Pratibha Patil, barring extremely unexpected events, it is fairly certain that she will go on to become India’s first woman president.
Before leaving Jaipur for New Delhi, she thanked Sonia Gandhi for choosing her and said that her first job as president would be to make National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) started by UPA a success.
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