news details |
|
|
| Patil unruffled over outcome of Prez poll | | |
NEW DELHI, JULY 5 "Which is the bigger post - Collector or Governor?"
Young Pratibha Patil had asked this innocent question to her father over six decades ago when he enquired what she wanted to become a Collector or the Governor.
Her father had given her the obvious answer and she got the post in Rajasthan three years ago.
But now the former Rajasthan Governor is set for greater glory with the July 19 poll expected to catapult her to the highest post in the land.
Pratibhatai, as the UPA-Left nominee is fondly called by her supporters and admirers, remains miles away from issues political in informal talks and the reasons are obvious.
The septuagenarian leader appears rather baffled and a bit sad for all the heat that has been generated over charges raked up against her, though her image in native Maharashtra has always remained that of a non-controversial leader.
The former Governor and Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha appears the least worried about the outcome on July 21 and goes about meeting countless people, big and small, at her temporary residence at Nine South Avenue, just a walking distance from Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Her first brush with anything political was in 1957 when she canvassed support for the Principal of her college, the Late Y Mahajan, who later became a senior Congress leader, representing Jalgoan constituency for several terms.
In 1962, Patil was made a candidate in the Maharashtra assembly polls. She still recalls the lectures she heard from veterans like Tarkateerth Lakshmanshastri Joshi, who edited the Marathi encyclopedia as also eminent journalist P V Gadgil in the party camp organised for the candidates.
She got into the Maharashtra assembly first at a young age when she was not even married.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar is her contemporary and there are not many who are now active.
For Patil, elections have never posed much problem and her 1972 assembly election was almost a walkover.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
