The presidential election is once again on us. The country has to choose another occupant for Rashtrapati Bhavan next month. Opposition parties have already made some moves in this regard. They have sounded President Sanjiva Reddy whether he is willing to offer himself for second term and they have called for a consensus candidate. There is an obvious contradiction between the two moves. The opposition leaders cannot first start looking for a possible candidate and then expect the ruling party with a clear majority in the electoral college to accept him as a consensus candidate. But that apart, they cannot seriously expect Mrs Gandhi either to accept Mr Reddy or any other nominee of theirs or agree to join them in a search for a compromise candidate. They must know that she would like to put her own nominee into Rashtrapati Bhavan and that she is in a position to have her way. So their moves have to be seen as an attempt to buy time and to embarrass Mrs Gandhi. They need to buy time because they do not in fact yet have a candidate, Mr Reddy being understandably reluctant to accept their proposal. For he cannot possibly wish to invite certain defeat and the consequent loss of face. Perhaps they are calculating that they will be able to agree on Vice-President Hidayatullah and persuade him to be their nominee in case Mrs Gandhi does not choose him as her candidate for presidentship and he resigns in a huff. Above all, they expect to be able to embarrass Mrs Gandhi because in recent years the view has gained ground that a consensus President is in the best interests of the country. This proposition is open to question.
Since the adoption of the Constitution in 1950, the Indian President has often been compared with the British monarch. Dr Rajendra Prasad contested this view and argued that the powers of the Indian President needed to be precisely defined. By implication, he suggested that an elected President should have more powers than a hereditary monarch. Dr Prasad’s suggestion has not found acceptance and the comparison with the British monarch has held. One difference between the two is obvious. Since no one can be elected President without the support of the majority party, he owes his office to it, though he does not on that account serve as its instrument. Indeed, in view of the responsibilities that devolve on the office of President under the Constitution, especially in exceptional circumstances as after the break-up of the Janata Party and the fall of the Desai government in the summer of 1979, he has to be above partisan politics. But since the Constitution specifically vests all executive powers in the council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister, the President must get along well with one who holds that topmost executive office in the land. The country cannot afford the luxury of intrigue and conflict at that level. It is, therefore, on the whole desirable that the President is the nominee of the Prime Minister. Of course, if the Prime Minister does not command the necessary majority in the electoral college, he or she has no choice but to seek the support of other parties. In that case, the concept of a consensus President becomes relevant.
At the time of Mr VV Giri’s election as President in 1969, the ruling party headed by Mrs Gandhi did not possess the necessary majority in the electoral college. Indeed, Mr Giri was not its candidate, to begin with. Though its support was of critical importance for his election, Mr Giri did not owe his office solely to it. He, therefore, began to see himself as a consensus President and talk as one. He had the good sense not to precipitate a constitutional crisis by refusing to go along with the Prime Minister on critical issues on which he held views different from hers. But he could have done so, obviously with disastrous consequences, particularly up to 1971 when Mrs Gandhi lacked a majority in the Lok Sabha.
Mr Sanjiva Reddy is the first consensus President we have had. He was not the choice of the then Prime Minister, Mr Morarji Desai. Mr Desai had to accept him under pressure from some of the constituents of the Janata Party. Then the Congress was also too demoralized and divided to think of putting up its own candidate. It must be said to Mr Reddy’s credit that like Mr Giri he, too, has not precipitated a constitutional crisis in his five-year term which is now drawing to a close. His role in July 1979 when Mr Desai lost his majority in the Lok Sabha was controversial and is still open to question. This is especially so in respect of his decision to ignore Mr Jagjivan Ram’s claim as the new leader of the Janata parliamentary party and to ask Mr Charan Singh to form the government. But a case can be made in his favour. The more pertinent point, however, is that Mr Reddy’s relations with Mr Desai were far from cordial and that the same has been true of his relations with Mrs Gandhi. This could well have led to serious difficulties.
As political controversies in our country have sharpened, it has become a practice for opposition parties to present memoranda to the President against the government and wait on him. This is a helpful development inasmuch as it provides another outlet for aggrieved politicians and parties. But the President is not the last court of appeal and he is not expected under the Constitution to function as such. He is obliged to be guided by the advice of the council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister. The Constitution is specific on this issue. But even if it was not, it would have been necessary either to write such a provision into the basic law of the land or to establish such a convention as in Britain. Parliamentary democracy cannot function on any other basis.
Mr Giri proclaimed that he was not a rubber-stamp President. In the process he cast a slur on his predecessors, all of them men who had distinguished themselves in the service of the nation. In reality he was being only contentious and contentious men do not make effective Heads of State in functioning democracies. If a President’s, like a constitutional monarch’s, main function is to “advise, guide and encourage” the Prime Minister, he should be anything but contentious. Quiet advice quietly tendered has a much greater chance of influencing the government’s policies than public airing of differences. Mr Reddy, too, has on occasions chosen to air his differences with the government in public speeches and private conversations. This has led to all kind of speculations and rumours which cannot be said to have served any public interest.
In the circumstances, Mrs Gandhi cannot be blamed if she feels that both as Prime Minister and leader of the Congress (I) with a clear majority in the electoral college, she must have the final say in the selection of the next Head of State. It is, however, not going to be easy for her to choose a candidate. She does not have a surfeit of men of stature at her disposal. She can, of course, put a relative non-entity into Rashtrapati Bhavan as she did once in the past. But such men bring the august office of President into disrepute and cannot be of much use to her in difficult moments. There are some other complications. But the opposition parties also do not have many appropriate names to suggest. We are concerned only with the principles which should determine the choice of the next President and we have little doubt that the Prime Minister is entitled to decide.