Why should Pratibha Patil’s gender matter?

One would imagine that while putting up the name of Pratibha Patil as their presidential candidate, the UPA would cite her career record as the reason for the nomination. Instead, all we get to hear about is her gender. Because she is a woman, the rhetoric goes, everyone should support her. Mumbai Mirror reported yesterday:

The NDA has made up its mind to keep its nominee in the presidential fray after its top leader Atal Behari Vajpayee said the alliance would not agree to the candidature of UPA nominee Pratibha Patil. But the Congress is unhappy. It attacked the BJP for not supporting Patil for the post of the President of India and accused the saffron party of being “blatantly” against the cause of women.

“It is very unfortunate that at this crucial moment in India’s history, the Opposition BJP does not have the political grace, social commitment or the moral fibre to support the candidature of Patil,” party spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan said.

She said any political party which has even a minimum commitment to the cause of women would have come forward to support UPA in this “historic” initiative.

And no doubt in the past when the BJP refused to support the Congress’s choice for president, and that choice happened to be a man, they did so because they were “‘blatantly’ against the cause of men.” Figures.

Meanwhile, Mumbai Mirror also reports the following exchange between Sonia Gandhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee:

Sonia: Main paheli baar aapse kuch maang rahi hoon.

Vajpayee: Humne to aap ko desh de diya hai. Aur kya de sakte hain?

Heh. And while Karan Thapar unwisely confesses that he is responsible for Pratibha Patil’s nomination, Vir Sanghvi points out:

[L]et’s not get carried away by all this politically correct pro-woman hypocrisy. At least six names were considered by the UPA and the Left (Pranab, Arjun Singh, Karan Singh, Shivraj Patil, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Motilal Vora and more). Not one was a woman.

The only reason Pratibha Patil’s name came up was because the Congress had wearied of Prakash Karat’s veto. No matter what name the party came up with, Karat refused to move beyond Pranab or Arjun Singh. When even dull but deserving Shivraj Patil was turned down, the Congress had the bright idea of coming up with a woman compromise candidate. If Karat had objected to Mrs Patil, he would have seemed anti-woman and so, he finally gave in.

This is where I point out that Mahima Chaudhary is a woman. This is also where I point out that had a Mango been nominated, no one would have dared oppose it, for that would have seemed both anti-national and anti-fruit. What other healthy food is there, then? Spinach?