Lobbying on for second term for Abdul Kalam

New Delhi: Though there are still four months to go before he retires, lobbying for a second term for President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has begun. The president is to retire in July, and the election notification is due to be issued some time in the latter half of June.

While sources in Rashtrapati Bhavan say that the president has expressed his desire to return to teaching once his term expires, political manoeuvring has begun to back Abdul Kalam for a second term.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader conceded off the record that the Samajwadi Party (SP) has already started sounding other parties, for a second term for Abdul Kalam, and the BJP may be inclined, depending on the situation.

In the mood

According to the BJP, the Telugu Desam Party and the DMK too have been sounded on Abdul Kalam and both appeared to be in a mood to work for a second term for Abdul Kalam. "Even the Bahujan Samaj Party might be willing to back Abdul Kalam," the BJP leader said.

In 2002, it was Mulayam Singh Yadav, SP chief and Uttar Pradesh chief minister, who had first mooted Abdul Kalam's candidature as president with the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Almost all the parties, with the exception of the Left, fell in line fearing that the BJP and SP together would campaign against them for not supporting a "nationalist Muslim".

Now, with the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls due (April 7-May 8) and with an eye on its Muslim vote bank, the SP would try to publicise its preference for Abdul Kalam, said a critic of Mulayam Singh.

Though political leaders maintain that the presidential elections are a long way off and they have no candidates in mind as yet, parties like the SP and BJP are apprehensive that attempts may be made to reduce and marginalise their vote value.

Fearing imposition of president's rule in Uttar Pradesh, SP general secretary Amar Singh had recently alleged that the Congress was trying to impose federal rule in the state to exclude the large number of his party legislators from participating in the presidential elections.