India set for first female president

India, (AFP)

Pratibha Patil, a diminutive 72-year-old lawyer, was set to be declared India's first woman president on Saturday after one of the bitterest political campaigns in the nation's post-colonial history. Early results showed her headed for a comfortable victory as counting continued late Saturday of ballots cast by an electoral college made up of federal and state lawmakers, according to television reports.

Sealed ballot boxes from across the country - where legislators voted in state capitals - were brought to the parliament house for counting.

The result, however, had been a foregone conclusion after the opposition said on Thursday that Patil had defeated its candidate, the incumbent 84-year-old Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, for the largely ceremonial job.

A stream of well-wishers thronged Patil's residence in New Delhi and people were dancing in the streets in her home town of Jalgaon in the western state of Maharashtra.

The voting followed a presidential campaign described by analysts as the most vitriolic in India's six decades of independence.

Sonia Gandhi, the president of the ruling Congress party, plucked Patil from political obscurity, saying her election would boost the cause of gender equality and would be a "historic moment."

But Patil, a native of western Maharashtra state, was buffeted by accusations that she protected her brother in a murder probe and shielded her husband in a suicide scandal.

There were also claims of nepotism and involvement in a slew of financial scams.

Patil, a demure figure who dresses conservatively in a sari pulled over her hair, has denied any wrongdoing.

She has also been mocked for revealing that a dead spiritual guru gave her a "divine premonition of greater responsibility."

India's top news magazine, India Today, put her on its front cover with the headline "Embarrassing Choice."

Analysts say Patil has a tough act to follow in the form of India's popular outgoing President Abdul Kalam. Congress rebuffed his bid for a second five-year term because, analysts say, it wanted a party loyalist.

The silver-haired, shaggy-locked missile scientist, who became a national hero after overseeing successful tests in 1998 that turned India into a nuclear power, was dubbed the "People's President" for his populist style. Kalam, the son of an illiterate Muslim boatman, is known for his simple lifestyle despite occupying an opulent 340-room sandstone palace that housed the viceroy when Britain ruled the subcontinent.

Kalam said this week he will leave the palace where he has lived for the past five years with just "two small suitcases" after his term expires July 24.