Bardhan to take up question of woman President

New Delhi, May 6: Even as the debate on the next resident of the Rashtrapathi Bhavan has started hotting up, a top Left leader today offered to work on the idea of having the first woman President to mark the 60th year of Independence.

CPI(M) General Secretary A B Bardhan said he would take up the issue of a woman President with the Left parties as well as with the UPA and the Congress.

''It is not a bad idea. I will work on it,'' he said in an interview on the private televison channel CNN-IBN, in reply to a question on a successor to Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, whose term expires in July this year.

Strongly opposing the suggestion to give a second term to Dr Kalam, Mr Bardhan said that the country, ''Does not lack people with qualities to be President. There are so many to choose from.'' He made it clear that he would not support the elevation of Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to the Presidency, saying, ''I think the President of the country should be someone who firstly is secular. On this question of secularism, Mr Shekhawat does belong to the BJP. He's never denied it.'' On the possibility of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee being put up as a candidate for the Presidency, he said he would welcome Mr Chatterjee becoming President but he would not propose his name.

In this context, he denied reports that he had proposed the name of Mr Chatterjee and said that the first party that should consider the candidature of Mr Chatterjee is the CPI(M). ''He belonges to that party. So if anybody has to consider that question first it should be the CPI(M).'' Replying to a question on whether the Left parties had discussed the candidature of Mr Chatterjee, he said this had not come up.

Asked if the CPM has taken the initiative as yet, he said, ''I don't think they have.'' Mr Bardhan also made it clear that Mr Chatterjee's possible candidature had not been discussed with either Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

Asked how he would respond to the fact that the BJP is likely to oppose Mr Chatterjee's candidature, he said that they should also be ''worried that if they propose a name, we may not be agreeable.''

UNI