India's ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on Thursday finalized the name of Pratibha Patil, governor of the north-western state of Rajasthan, as its nominee for the upcoming presidential elections in the country, acccording to dpa. The decision came a day after India's election commission announced that the polls to elect the country's 12th president will be held on July 19. The Congress party, which leads the UPA, and its partners the Left Front, an alliance of India's leftist parties as well as other regional parties arrived at the consensus candidate after three days of discussions. Congress party president and UPA chairwoman Sonia Gandhi announced the name of 72-year-old Patil - only woman governor in India - as the official nominee after a UPA coordination meeting in New Delhi. "It is a historic moment," Gandhi said in a development which could possibly pave the way for India's first woman president. Patil, emerged as a surprise candidate for the post of President after the UPA's left-wing allies rejected the Congress party's choices of Federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil and another Congress leader, Karan Singh. Local news outlets reported that the left parties were averse to Patil as they held an opinion that he was not effective in controlling religious violence in the country. Left leaders were also not in favour of Singh, a scion of Kashmir's royal family because of his links with Hindu groups, the reports said. Patil, a former deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha (upper house of the Indian Parliament) has been Governor of Rajasthan for the last nearly three years. She is qualified lawyer by profession has had long experience as a politician and an administrator having led the Congress party unit in the western Maharashtra state as well as holding ministerial positions in the state. Patil has been a staunch loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhi family and a non-controversial politician and had gone into a virtual political wilderness before she was brought in as Rajasthan Governor in November 2004, the PTI news agency reported. The alliance of opposition parties, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is rallying around Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, a BJP veteran, though a spokesman for NDA said that the party is likely to finalize its nominee only on June 18. The recently-formed coalition of eight fringe parties, Third Front, has already put forth Farooq Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, as its candidate. President Abdul Kalam, a scientist and the architect of the country's missile programme, is India's third Muslim president, has declined to make another bid, saying that he would only enter the race as a consensus candidate to extend his five-year term that expires on July 24. Nominees have until June 30 to file their intention to run and votes will be counted on July 22, said election commissioner N Gopalswami. The President of India is elected by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of the Parliament - Lok Sabha and tht Rajya Sabha, the upper and the lower house respectively, and the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies (Vidhan Sabha). The UPA alliance has got over 513,000 votes while the strength of the opposition NDA is over 354,000 votes and the combination of eight regional parties constituting the third front accounts for 105,000 votes. All presidential elections so far have witnessed a contest, except in 1977, when Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy was elected unopposed. In the last presidential elections there was a contest when Kalam emerged as a dark horse and won with a thumping majority with the Left parties putting up little resistance by fielding Lakshmi Sehgal - a political lightweight.
