New Delhi, Jan. 25: Quick, spot the standout. Edmund Hillary, Sachin Tendulkar, Ratan Tata, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Asha Bhonsle, Pranab Mukherjee….

No Padma awards for you for picking out Mukherjee, who has become the second serving minister in the republic to be chosen for the second highest civilian award.

The external affairs minister is the lone politician on the list of Padma Vibhushan nominees that will be formally unveiled tomorrow but his name comes under a “discipline” called “public affairs”.

None was considered worthy of being conferred the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award that got mired in a debate after L.K. Advani proposed A.B. Vajpayee’s name. One of the points of contention was whether politicians should be given the honour.

The political establishment has replied by making Mukherjee one of the 13 nominees for Padma Vibhushan — a decision that has found favour with the BJP that set the precedent by honouring an incumbent minister.

The first serving minister to be conferred the award was the late Sikander Bakht, who was chosen in 2000 when he was industry minister in the Vajpayee government.

The BJP said the award had nothing to do with Bakht or Mukherjee being in office. The honour is in recognition of their “long, exceptional and distinguished public service”.

“It is clear he (Mukherjee) got it for public service and not because he is a senior minister. But to pass up Atalji smacks of subjectivity. If Atalji and Mukherjee were both awarded, the government could have spared itself the insinuation,” BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said.

The Congress picked up from where the BJP left off. “Mukherjee thinks of the country when he is framing and shaping policies. The honour has to be viewed in the perspective of his immense contributions in Parliament and outside. He stands out as one of the country’s greatest veterans,” M. Veerappa Moily, the Congress’s chief spokesperson, said.

Devendra Dwivedi, a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee, defended Mukherjee’s selection in sharper terms.

“The debate on the Bharat Ratna became a diatribe against politicians. If Ratan Tata or Tendulkar get it, then it is on the basis of merit. If a politician is chosen, he doesn’t deserve it. But how is Mukherjee less worthy of it? Legitimacy, not popular endorsement, is important. Populist approaches cannot influence the government’s decision,” he said.

A Congress source said an element of “guilt” could also have been at play. “Perhaps, there was a feeling of guilt that a person who used to preside over cabinet meetings in Indira Gandhi’s time was passed up for the Prime Minister’s job and later the President’s,” he said.

When Bakht was nominated, there were insinuations that the BJP was trying to pacify the only well-known minority leader in the party then after he felt let down over portfolio allocation. But the BJP today denied this.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also a Padma Vibhushan. But he was given the award in 1987 — before he joined politics — in the “civil service” category.