FIRST CITIZEN: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam; (top, from left to right) N.R. Narayana Murthy, Margaret Alva, N.D. Tiwari, Somnath Chatterjee, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Karan Singh

The venue, the President would have known, was all wrong. The sylvan Mysore campus of India’s leading information technology company is not where Presidents are born. They emerge out of the backrooms of the offices of political parties — as A.P.J. Abdul Kalam himself did five years ago.

On Sunday, President Kalam was asked at the Infosys campus what he thought of being succeeded by its founder, N.R. Narayana Murthy. “Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic,” Kalam replied. He may well have used one of the many synonyms for the word — preposterous, unlikely or improbable.

Murthy is nowhere in the reckoning in the presidential contest. Political parties are in the thick of another race — that for the seat of Lucknow — but the informal talks for the presidential post have begun. On the sidelines of the Uttar Pradesh elections, political parties have kicked off a debate on who is going to be lodged in Rashtrapati Bhavan from July 25, when Kalam’s term ends.

The name of the finalist would depend on the outcome of the UP polls. If the Samajwadi Party (SP) or the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fares better than either party did in the last state polls, they will have a say on who gets to be President.

Some in political circles in Delhi stress that the choice of the new President is significant in view of apprehensions that no party would win a clear majority in the next Parliamentary election, scheduled to be held in 2009. In that event, which party — or bloc — forms the government at the Centre would largely depend on who is first invited to do so by the President.

But psephologist Yogendra Yadav doesn’t believe that this is a major factor. “A hung Parliament in 2009 is not an issue for the 2007 presidential elections. It’s been happening regularly since the early Nineties. Every President gets to preside over at least one Lok Sabha election — so will this one,” he says.

As of now, no political bloc has enough voting clout to see its nominee through. The method followed for the presidential election is a complex one. In accordance with Article 54 of the Indian Constitution, the President is elected by the members of an electoral college comprising elected members of both houses of Parliament as well as those in the state legislative assemblies. Currently, going by approximations, the NDA has an estimated total of around 6.6 lakh votes, and the UPA has about 6.5 lakh. The UPA and the Left — with about 1.6 lakh votes — outweigh the NDA. The SP has some 1.1 lakh votes, and the BSP, as of now, a little less than 50,000.

“It’s all a question of arithmetic,” says BSP leader Ambed Rajan. “And, of course, the calculations that are going to take place in UP after the elections will have an impact on who’s going to have the last say on the presidential post,” he says.

The confabulations will begin seriously after the new government takes over in UP. “We are going to take this issue up after UP,” says BJP leader Arun Jaitley. “We are still to discuss this in our party,” adds Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member Brinda Karat.

Informally, however, several names are doing the rounds. Former chief minister of Uttarakhand, N.D. Tiwari, has been active. He had a meeting with leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Delhi in an effort aimed at garnering political support. “He asked us to lobby with the Left,” says an NCP member.

Tiwari doesn’t stand a chance, for there are not too many people in the Congress who support his candidature. Instead, there are some in the party who would rather have former Maharashtra chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. “He is a Dalit leader, and his candidature may win us the support of the BSP,” says a minister at the Centre. “We haven’t discussed the issue, but Shinde has a fairly clean image,” adds CPI’s national secretary D. Raja.

The names of probable and improbable candidates are being sent out as feelers in the Congress. Some insiders believe that HRD minister Arjun Singh may emerge as a contender too. Singh’s spiritual guru, known as the Mauni Baba, had once told him that raj yog — the highest seat of power — was in store for him. He never got the PM’s chair, but his camp followers believe that the Baba’s words may still be realised if Singh becomes President.

Among the serious contenders is vice-president and fellow Thakur Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, provided the BJP wins a sizeable number of seats in UP or gets the support of the SP in the presidential poll. “We have had all kinds of Presidents — from Muslims and Brahmins to a Dalit,” says a political observer. “So there are some who believe that the time has come for a Thakur President.” Shekhawat is a Thakur, as is Karan Singh, whose name has also cropped up as a probable.

“In all probability, the SP will decide a consensus candidate along with the Left and other members of the Third Front, such as the Telugu Desam,” says SP MP, Shahid Siddiqui.

Some would like Kalam to be given another term. “But that is something that is not going to happen,” says Congress spokesperson Satyavrat Chaturvedi, “and that’s because President Kalam himself is not interested in an extension.”

A section in the Congress believes that the time has come for a north Indian to take over as the head of state. Some have been clamouring for a woman President, and the names being taken are those of Margaret Alva, Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande and M.K. Gandhi’s granddaughter Sumitra Kulkarni.

Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s name has also come up in the list of probables, but the CPI(M) stresses that his candidature has not been discussed. “If the UPA falls even slightly short of vote count, the LF votes would become extremely important, giving the LF the power to hold sway over the elections,” says Yadav. “In which case, it wouldn’t be surprising if Somnath Chatterjee runs for — and becomes — the next President.”

But that’s all in the realm of ifs and whens. Once a new government is installed in Uttar Pradesh, the race will heat up. Now is the time for warm ups.