Presidential Values

The President Adds A Dimension Of Constitutional Oversight To A Competitive Parliamentary Democracy. But The Pomp And Ceremony Of The Office And The Estate, An Anachronistic Legacy Of The Raj, Comes At A Huge Cost To The Taxpayer.

- Ajit Kumar Jha

IN its 70th year of Independence, the government has chosen a Dalit candidate for its highest office of the head of the state for the second time. Ram Nath Kovind, former governor of Bihar, is the second Scheduled Caste presidential candidate after K.R. Narayanan became the country’s 10th, and the first Dalit, president in 1997. As democratic politics is first and foremost a symbolic contest for representation, the choice of a Dalit candidate was a move that was widely described as another “masterstroke” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So formidable was the first-mover advantage the NDA gained by selecting a Dalit candidate for the presidency that the Congress’s Meira Kumar, also a Dalit, became an obvious choice as candidate for the 17-party mahagathbandhan. However, paradoxically, while choosing candidates from Dalit backgrounds, the leadership across political parties has been silent on the enormous costs the country’s taxpayers bear to house and maintain the office of the Presidency.

Consider the costs. For the next five years, Ram Nath Kovind, president-elect, along with his family, will be occupying two floors of a wing of the 340-roomed presidential palace, spread over 330 acres, on Raisina Hill. Larger than the Palace of Versailles in France, the grounds of the Rashtrapati Bhavan alone are worth an estimated Rs 16,000 crore. Formerly the Viceroy’s House, it has four wings, two each in the north and south, 37 fountains, 227 towering columns, an 18-hole golf course, tennis and squash courts, swimming pools, stables for the horses and camels of the bodyguards, a hospital and even a petrol pump.