India elects first female president



Newly elected Indian President Pratibha Patil and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Photo: AP
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Pratibha Patil has become the first female president of India in an election result described as an historic step forward for women in the world's most populous democracy.

MPs elected the 72-year-old lawyer by a landslide over the 84-year-old vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat for the largely ceremonial post of head of state.

"I am grateful to the voters ... I am grateful to the people of India, the men and women of India," Patil said outside her New Delhi home, as supporters danced in the streets and burst firecrackers in celebration.

"This is the victory of the principles which our Indian people uphold," she told reporters.

Sonia Gandhi, the president of the ruling Congress party, smiled warmly on hearing the candidate she had plucked from relative political obscurity had won the race.

"In the 60th year of our independence, for the first time, we have a woman president and I want to thank our alliance partners and all those who voted for her," said Gandhi.

The government's Communist partners echoed her views.

"It is a historic win ... it is a great moment," AB Bardhan, the leader of the Communist Party of India, told reporters. "Those who have opposed her have to reconcile her victory."

Patil, a native of western Maharashtra state, defeated Shekhawat by a large margin, securing 66 per cent of the votes cast by an electoral college of federal and state MPs, said election officer PDT Achary.

A stream of well-wishers thronged Patil's residence in the national capital. People hugged each other in celebration and distributed sweets in the streets of her home town of Jalgaon.

In contrast, Shekhawat's official residence was deserted with the vice-president submitting his resignation after conceding defeat.

"I congratulate Pratibha Devisingh Patil on her election as the president and accept the result in the election with humility," Shekhawat later said in a statement to the media.

Patil's victory came despite a savage campaign against her by the Hindu nationalist opposition, described by analysts as the most vitriolic in India's post-colonial history.

Flashing a victory sign, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Patil's win a vote against "the politics of divisiveness ... a vote in favour of unity and for strengthening the foundation of our democracy".

Patil, governor of the north-western state of Rajasthan, was accused of protecting her brother in a murder probe and shielding her husband in a suicide scandal. There were also claims of involvement in a slew of financial scams.