June 14, 2007
Pratibha Patil: From Ping-Pong to Presidential Palace
Jaipur
Rajasthan Governor Pratibha Devisingh Patil was a table tennis
champion who studied law before taking to politics to build a career
that is set to catapult her into Rashtrapati Bhavan as India's first
woman president.
Born in the small town of Jalgaon of Maharashtra on Dec 19, 1934,
she was an athletic teenager when India became independent. She
studied both in Jalgaon and Mumbai to earn post-graduate degrees in
arts and law, and practised as an advocate in Jalgaon.
She was a champion in table tennis during college days, winning
shields in inter-college tournaments.
Social work drew her to politics, and the Congress was the first
choice in a state where the party held sway. She was elected to the
Maharashtra assembly in 1962 for the first time.
A Rajput, she married Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat, a Maratha of
Rajasthani origin, three years later.
From 1972 to 1978, the soft-spoken Pratibha Patil was cabinet
minister in Maharashtra four times holding such portfolios as social
welfare, public health, prohibition, rehabilitation and cultural
affairs, and education.
When the Congress got dethroned in Maharashtra in 1979, she became
the opposition leader in the assembly and came to be seen as staunch
loyalist of the Gandhi family.
Pratibha Patil returned as cabinet minister in 1982, heading the
urban development and housing ministry, and also held charge of
civil supplies and social welfare.
She was elected to the Rajya Sabha, parliament's upper house, in
1985, after nearly a quarter century of state politics.
She became deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha from 1986 for two
years. She was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1991 in a general
election marred by the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv
Gandhi.
Pratibha Patil became the Rajasthan governor Nov 8, 2004 -- one year
after the state went into the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
One of her most noteworthy actions as governor was her refusal to
sign the controversial Rajasthan Freedom of Religion Bill that
banned religious conversions.
She argued that it contained provisions that directly or indirectly
affected fundamental rights related to religious freedom.
Her husband Devisingh's family had migrated to Amravati in Vidarbha
region more than a century ago. They have a son and a daughter.
Pratibha Patil headed the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC)
from 1989-90.
Pratibha Patil has been involved in the cooperative movement in
Maharashtra. She also set up an industrial training school for the
blind besides starting sewing classes for poor and needy women.
She set up hostels for working women in New Delhi and Mumbai, an
engineering college for rural youths in Jalgaon, a sugar factory
also in Jalgaon and also a cooperative bank for women in Jalgaon.
A widely travelled person, she has been part of various Indian
delegations that went abroad. She attended the International Council
of Social Welfare Conference in Nairobi and Puerto Rico and led a
delegation to Austria on status of women.
She was a member of a Congress delegation to Bulgaria in 1985 and
attended the Commonwealth Presiding Officers Conference in London in
1988. She has also traveled to China to attend the World Women's
Conference.
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Jaipur