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Pratibha Devisingh Patil (born December 19, 1934) is a politician belonging to the Indian National Congress and was the nominee of the ruling United Progressive Alliance and Indian Left for the 2007 election of the President of India. The presidential election was held on July 19, 2007, the results of which will be announced on July 21, 2007. She is widely tipped to be the thirteenth President of India. She will be India’s first female president, if elected.

A lawyer by training, Pratibha Patil was a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, representing Edlabad constituency in Jalgaon District from 1962 to 1985. During 1986 - 1988, she held the post of deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha. As a member of parliament, she represented Amravati in the Lok Sabha between 1991 - 1996. She later became the 16th Governor of Rajasthan and, notably, was also the first female governor of this state.

Pratibha Patil joined politics in 1962 at the age of 27. Under the mentorship of senior Congress leader and ex-Chief Minister Yashwantrao Chavan, she became a deputy minister for education after re-election in 1967 (in the Vasantrao Naik ministry). In her next terms (1972-78) she was a full cabinet minister for the state. In successive congress governments, she handled the portfolios of tourism, social welfare and housing under several chief ministers, Vasantdada Patil, Babasaheb Bhosle, S. B. Chavan and Sharad Pawar. She was continually re-elected to the assembly, either from Jalgaon or the nearby Edlabad constituencies, until 1985, when she was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Congress candidate. She has never lost an election that she has contested. She is loyal politician especially to Gandhi’s clan. In 70s she agreed to be in jail for about 10 days to defend PM Indira Gandhi.

In 1985, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha, and served as its deputy chairperson from November 1986 to November 1988. Her term expired in April 1990. The following year, in the elections when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated she won election 10th Lok Sabha from at Amravati constituency, her husband’s city, where he had once been mayor, thus first time entering in lower house of national parliament Lok Sabha.

She has also served as Director of National Federation of Urban Co-operative Banks & Credit Societies and the Member of Governing Council, National Co-operative, Union of India.

In November 2004, eight years after she had completed her term in the 10th Lok Sabha, Pratibha Patil was recalled from political hibernation to become the first woman Governor of Rajasthan. She was the second politician from Maharashtra in this post, the first being Vasantdada Patil. With Pratibha Patil as Governor, Rajasthan had women in three significant positions of power in the state, including Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Assembly Speaker Sumitra Singh.

In April 2006, the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly passed the Rajasthan Freedom of Religion Bill 2006 (originally titled as “Rajasthan Dharma Swatantrya Bill, 2006″). The objective of the bill was to control “unlawful conversion from one religion to another by allurement or by fraudulent means or forcibly.” However, some Christian organizations opposed the bill alleging that the bill was an outcome of the rightist policies of Sangh Parivar. However, Pratibha Patil returned the bill unsigned, stating certain clauses in the Bill infringed on “the fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of conscience and freedom to profess, practice and propagate religion.”

The Government of Rajasthan re-sent the bill to her in May 2006 noting that similar anti-conversion laws enacted by Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa over 40 years ago were upheld by the Supreme Court of India and that the head of the Constituent Assembly, Dr B R Ambedkar, while drafting Article 25 of the Constitution had said that it would be best to leave it to the state legislatures to make laws to regulate conversions. After sitting on the bill for over a year she sent it to the President of India just a day before she resigned as governor of Rajasthan. A similar bill named Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 2006 passed later was promptly signed by the state governor.

Pratibha Patil resigned as the Governor of Rajasthan on June 21, 2007, due to her presidential candidacy.

According to the election early information, Pratibha Patil is poised to have a smooth sailing, because she has won more votes than her Congress party expected. She is supported by the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Left and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). It was a sweep for Patil in Andhra Pradesh, where 223 MLAs voted for her with just two for Shekhawat, in Arunachal Pradesh it was 58 for her and one for Shekhawat, in Assam, she got 92 and Shekhawat 20 (four votes were invalid), in Delhi (50-19) and in Goa (25-14). Election’s counting took place on July 21, three days before incumbent APJ Abdul Kalam’s term ends. The counting began at 11 a.m. in Room No. 62 of parliament building where 692 MPs registered their votes Thursday.

The new president, to succeed A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, will be sworn in on July 25. We’ll see then.. Will she become the first president for India??

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