Pratibha Patil

On July 7, 1965, Pratibha Patil married Dr Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat, who was a lecturer of Chemistry then. An accomplished educationist and social worker, he was the inaugural mayor of Amravati Municipal Corporation. Shekhawat has also been a member of INC party for the major part of his life and was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for the Amravati constituency in 1985.

They have two children together, daughter Jyoti Rathore and son Raosaheb Shekhawat (born Rajendra Singh Shekhawat), who has followed his parents’ footsteps to become a politician.

Born on December 19, 1934, in Nadgaon, a small village in Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, India, Pratibha Patil is the daughter of Narayan Rao Patil and the sister of G. N. Patil.

She received her initial education at R. R. Vidyalaya, Jalgaon, and later enrolled at the Mooljee Jetha College, which was then under Pune University, to study Political Science and Economics. After being awarded a master’s degree in the subjects, she attended Government Law College, Mumbai, affiliated to the University of Mumbai, and got a Bachelor of Law degree.

She was equally active in sports throughout her student life. She played table tennis, even winning several shields at numerous inter-collegiate tournaments.

Pratibha Patil began her professional career as a lawyer at the Jalgaon District Court. She also became involved in social work, especially to improve the dire condition of women in India.

She came into politics when she was still a student, becoming a member of the INC party. She would go on to be one of the staunchest loyalists to the Nehru-Gandhi family, serving with unquestioning deference.

In 1962, she was voted to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from Jalgaon constituency at only 27 years of age. Her political success continued when she contested from Muktainagar (formerly Edlabad) constituency, winning her seat to the state assembly back-to-back four times between 1967 and 1985.

Patil joined the INC government in 1967 for the first time as the Deputy Minister of Public Health. Over the next five years, she also held prohibition, tourism, housing and parliamentary affairs portfolios.

She was the Minister of Social Affairs from 1972 to 1974, Public Health and Social Welfare from 1974 to 1975, Prohibition, Rehabilitation and Cultural Affairs from 1975 to 1976, Education from 1977 to 1978, Urban Development and Housing from 1982 to 1983, and Civil Supplies and Social Welfare from 1983 to 1985.

Pratibha Patil wasn’t Congress’ first choice as a candidate but the left-leaning parties of UPA did not like initial options, former Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Karan Singh, put forward by Congress. She was then personally handpicked by Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi herself despite Patil’s remark of not willing to be a “rubber-stamp president”.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Patil faced several controversies, including accusations of shielding her brother and husband in connection of unrelated deaths of a teacher named Kisan Dhage and English professor Vishram Patil. Some of her critics observed that she didn’t possess the necessary charisma, experience, and ability. They also assessed that her long hiatus from politics and her beliefs in the supernatural made her unfit for the job.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) chose BJP veteran and incumbent vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to challenge her. In the election conducted on July 19, 2007, she accumulated two-thirds of the total votes and took oath as the President of the Republic of India on 25 July. Dr Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister throughout her tenure.

Patil kindled even more controversies after the election. She is infamous for going on more foreign trips than any other president and allegedly took money from public funds to build herself a retirement mansion. She was also made to return the gifts that she had received in her role and had taken home after her retirement on July 25, 2012.

However, she made the full use of the limited power allocated to her position by the Indian constitution. She commuted a record 35 petitioners’ death sentences to life imprisonment, gave her full and unconditional support in abolishing abhorrent practices such as child marriage, addiction, and social suppression of women, and quietly used the power of her office to bring the agrarian crisis that was plaguing the Indian countryside into attention.