<b>Shekhar Gupta: </b>CV and stature

What makes one tick as Rashtrapati is set by the incumbent. It's for Kovind to prove sceptics wrong

Whether Ram Nath Kovind has the credentials to be India’s 14th Rashtrapati or not is now a non-question. His committed backers will read his many achievements in public life “in spite of” his humble origins, and even those on the margins may echo the answer embarrassed Congress leaders had given when skeletons were tumbling out of the closet of Pratibha Patil’s past as she was nominated in 2007.

My paper was then trawling Ms Patil’s past and running a series of exposes on murky dealings in the business of sugar, cooperative banking, and private educational institutions. Seeking a cessation of