Kovind was not such a closely guarded secret after all -Governance Now

Kovind was not such a closely guarded secret after all

NDA’s presidential candidate surprised some but the name had been doing rounds

Shankar Kumar | June 20, 2017 | New Delhi

#President #NDA #Narendra Modi #Ram Nath Kovind

(Photo: governor.bih.nic.in)

Ram Nath Kovind, Narendra Modi, NDA, President

“Ram Nath who?” That was the reaction from some newsmakers, when Ram Nath Kovind’s name was announced for the post of Bihar governor in 2015. The same response was repeated on Monday when he was named the ruling NDA’s candidate for the presidential elections.

And surprise there surely is. There were half a dozen names doing rounds from the ruling side, including some cabinet members, some party veterans, some dark horses and some usual suspects. Kovind was not named by anybody – no reporter with deep contacts every counted him among the potentials.

So, it seems, Kovind’s candidature was a closely guarded secret, or a last-minute brainwave of the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine.

That is not the case. I happen to have heard the name way back in December from a journalist-turned-administrator close to the ruling regime. This gentleman had told us, in a friendly banter talk, that the Bihar governor could be “potential presidential candidate of the NDA”.

When the same group of journalist-friends met him in March again and asked him if he still believed Kovind was in contention when so many big names had started doing rounds, he said, “Whatever I had to say I have already told you… it’s up to you to take it or leave it.”

Comments

Other News

GST revenue in May clocks 12% y-o-y growth

The gross Good & Services Tax (GST) revenue collected in the month of May, 2023 is ₹1,57,090 crore of which CGST is ₹28,411 crore, SGST is ₹35,828 crore, IGST is ₹81,363 crore (including ₹41,772 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is ₹11,489 crore (including ₹1,057 crore collecte

Need local solutions to climate change: P Velrasu of BMC

Climate change rising temperature and sea levels are posing new risks for coastal cities. With population growth rate of 1%- 2% in India every year, Mumbai too is growing and is population will double from 20 million to 40 million in the coming years. The city is also at the risk of rising sea level. It ne

Civil Services 2022 Top 20 felicitated

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, MoS PMO, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space and MoS Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday interacted with and felicitated the first 20 All India Toppers of IAS/ Civil Services Exam 20

Boost to offshore wind energy projects

In a major decision, the Government has decided to grant waiver of ISTS charges to Off-Shore Wind Projects and extend the waiver to Green Hydrogen/Green Ammonia. This decision has been taken to facilitate wider execution of offshore wind energy initiatives, to promote the expansion of Green Hydrogen / Gree

Duty of stakeholders to provide cost effective, alternate energy fuels: Gadkari

Urging use of alternative and cost effective fuels to reduce pollution caused by vehicles, union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said finding cost-effective fuels is the need of the hour and underlined that use of fuels like bio-CNG and green hydrogen help in protecting the e

Record production of rice, wheat, and sugarcane estimated

The foodgrain production of 3305.34 lakh tonnes is estimated in the current agricultural year 2022-23 – higher by 149.18 LMT as compared to the previous year, according to the Third Advance Estimates of production of major crops released by the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.