Survey favours another term for Kalam on Raisina Hill

New Delhi, Nov 17 (UNI) President APJ Abdul Kalam may have given ample indication of going back to academics after moving out of Raisina Hill in June next year, but over 70,000 e-mails that have landed on his web site think otherwise.

More e-mails have also gone to the web sites of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, urging them to nominate Dr Kalam for another five-year term in the grandiose Rashtrapati Bhavan.

A survey, jointly conducted by the WEEK magazine and C-Voter survey, has further buttressed the popularity of Dr Kalam, the President with the trademark silver grey locks who can talk about nuclear physics, music and politics with equal felicity.

The opinion poll revealed that three out of four Indians favoured Dr Kalam getting another stint in presidency while 77.9 per cent said they were satisfied with his performance.

Not only that, 61.2 per cent held that he was the best President India has had.

Asked who would they prefer if Dr Kalam, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Rajya Sabha member Karan Singh were in the fray, the respondents voted 64 per cent in favour of Dr Kalam, 15.3 per cent in favour of Mr Shekhawat while 6.9 per cent plumped for Dr Singh.

The survey was conducted among 1240 people randomly selected from across all sections of society and all age groups in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Baroda, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehra Dun, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jabalpur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Kochi, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Patna, Pune and Raipur.

''Not just ordinary citizens, but eminent lawyers, administrators, scientists, young politicians, academics and industrialists are rooting for the President who speaks the language of progress, positivity and positive secularism and dreams constantly of a happy and safe India,'' wrote the Week magazine.

The survey also revealed Dr Kalam as the best President India has had with 42 per cent voting for him while 21.8 per cent voted in favour of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President, 14 per cent for Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, 6 per cent for K R Narayanan, four per cent for S D Sharma, and 3.5 per cent each for Zail Singh and Dr Zakir Hussain.

If given a chance, who would you vote as President? Of the respondents, 43.7 per cent lent their weight behind Dr Kalam, 13.1 per cent for Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 10.8 per cent for Ms Sonia Gandhi, 4.6 per cent for Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy, 3.8 per cent for mega star Amitabh Bachchan and 1.7 per cent for Sachin Tendulkar.

There were other positives for Dr Kalam, which were greatly appreciated by the survey respondents. While 43.6 per cent of the voters held that the country is safe with him as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, only 17.2 per cent held the contrary view.

Further, 67.5 per cent of them admired the adventurous streak in Dr Kalam, who became the first President to undertake a sortie in a Sukhoi-30 and also travelled deep inside the sea in a submarine while 69.7 per cent hailed him as a youth icon.

Dr Kalam also received widespread approval for his various attributes and virtues -- helping India's nuclear programme (76.4 per cent), good hairstyle (54.4 per cent), non-political (67.9 per cent), honest and transparent (76.1 per cent), approachable (68.5 per cent) and secular (69.6 per cent).

But the President has his share of negatives also. A little over 61 per cent said he was ''too soft'', 43.5 per cent held that he was ''not tough'' on critical issues and 35.6 per cent said he 'kowtowed'' to political bosses. Further, 22.7 per cent felt that he is only a rubber stamp President.

President Kalam would have contributed more to the nation if he had remained a scientist only, held 24.5 per cent of the respondents.

''There have been scholars as Presidents before, but Kalam is the active President, who has touched the hearts of a large number of people,'' commented the Week magazine.

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