‘Untouchable’ Dalit Kovind elected as president
NEW DELHI: A Dalit was elected India’s 14th president late on Thursday, a rare achievement for a member of a community once known as “untouchables” and one of the most deprived groups in India.
Ram Nath Kovind, 71, an understated politician from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was selected as his party’s candidate for the largely ceremonial position in an effort to secure the Dalit vote in future elections. That is a critical step in the expansion of the party, observers said.
“Mr Modi is essentially a political animal, and he’s conscious of the political impact of a potential move,” said Ashok Malik, an analyst at the Observer Research Foundation. In choosing a presidential candidate, “he’s also gone for somebody who could potentially help the BJP”.
The Indian president is elected by members of Parliament and the state assemblies, so given the BJP’s strength nationally and the support of several other parties, the outcome of the vote was never in doubt. The Indian news channel NDTV reported that Mr Kovind garnered more than 65% of the votes on the way to becoming India’s second Dalit president.
After his victory, he spoke of the country’s villagers and its working class. “I want to tell them that Ram Nath Kovind is going to the president’s house as their representative,” he said. “My election to the position of president is the symbol of the greatness of Indian democracy.”
He was opposed for the office by Meira Kumar, a Dalit from the Indian National Congress party who is a former speaker of Parliament’s lower house.
“Dalit politics suddenly has come centre stage,” Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst, said. “Every leader is bending over backward to show ‘I am a well-wisher’.”
Mr Kovind was born on Oct 1, 1945, in a village in the Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh into a family of the Kori caste, known as underprivileged even among the Dalits. He has practiced as a lawyer in the Supreme Court and served as a BJP member of the upper house of Parliament from 1994 to 2006. Most recently, he was the governor of Bihar state.
His connections to Uttar Pradesh are also considered significant. India’s most populous state, it will figure prominently in the 2019 general election, when Modi will make every effort to forge a broad coalition among India’s Hindu majority. Despite being the governing party in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has not historically captured much of the Dalit vote, and recent flareups over issues affecting Dalits across the country could hurt the party politically.
Last year, a Dalit scholar committed suicide in Hyderabad after being suspended following altercations with a right wing Hindu campus group. Dalits have also been attacked over suspicions of cow slaughter by mobs of Hindus, who regard cows as sacred. And there were repeated clashes in May in Uttar Pradesh between Dalits and members of a higher caste.
Under Modi, the party has nevertheless made some inroads in the Dalit vote, and it has won elections in Uttar Pradesh with large margins in recent years.
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a journalist who has written a biography of Mr Modi, said Mr Kovind had been selected “purely because of his identity, not his accomplishments”.
The presidency, while a position of high esteem, has little power. The president, among other duties, has the ability to call elections, break ties in Parliament and issue death-row pardons. The current president, Pranab Mukherjee, who will step down on Monday, occasionally used the platform to draw attention to the importance of tolerance, though he was largely a cautious figure.
Mr Kovind is expected to work in step with the government. His selection is another step in the party’s consolidation of power. When it was last in power, the party chose APJ Abdul Kalam, a pick more appealing to the opposition because he not a party insider. This time such accommodation was unnecessary, analysts said.