From Dalit rights champ to President
Ram Nath Kovind was sworn in as India’s 14th president on Tuesday. Kovind, a low-profile politician, will have the task of establishing himself as the first citizen, and not the government’s rubber stamp.
Kovind, 71, was born in a poor family in Paraunkh village in rural Kanpur. “My election as President of India is to represent all such Kovinds toiling away to make a living,” he recalled the day he was elected.
Kovind’s father was a farmer who had to sell off a piece of land to fund his son’s education in Kanpur. He is a lawyer, who has practised at the Delhi high court and the Supreme Court. As a lawyer, he worked to provide free legal aid to the poor and Dalits.
Kovind’s Dalit identity is a “matter of fact” but that’s just one part, says the BJP. “If at all Kovind represents any section, it is that of the majority of India— rural, agrarian, economically and socially underprivileged. It is the same section that Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents. He too was sneered at by some Lutyens’ intellectuals as “chaiwala” .... ” BJP leader Ram Madhav wrote recently.
Kovind will be the country’s first president born and brought up in Uttar Pradesh.
His election is expected to “repair and consolidate” the BJP’s social base in the state after Yogi Adityanath, a Rajput, was made the chief minister. PM Modi represents Varanasi in Parliament.
Kovind unsuccessfully contested assembly elections twice and Lok Sabha polls once. He was elected to Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh in 1994 and served two consecutive terms. He spoke on a variety of subjects in Rajya Sabha.
It is perhaps his style of politics that led Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to back him for the president’s office though the JD(U) leader had criticised his appointment as the state’s governor in 2015.
Kovind could be a gentleman politician but as president he doesn’t have to a rubber stamp of the government. There is no constitutional provision that obliges the president to act on the ‘aid and advice’ of the Cabinet.
Kovind’s family stays away from the limelight.
His wife, Savita, called him for hours before she could speak to him after he was declared the NDA’s presidential candidate on June 19.
Kovind’s daughter, Swati, is an air hostess with Air India and his son, Prashant, owns a petrol pump.
Dog lovers will take pride in President Kovind.
A media report notes that when Kovind and his family lived at 144 North Avenue, New Delhi, they adopted six stray dogs. Will these dogs move to Rashtrapati Bhavan now?