Regional parties take Centre stage
In explaining his party's endorsement of PA Sangma for the post of President of India, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, has been highlighting the very limited objectives of a regional party in a State where one-third of the population is tribal. There is, he has insisted, no need to detect a national design behind his announcement earlier this week: it is merely his party's modest bid to stress the need for a Rashtrapati from a marginalised community. Patnaik's disclaimer of a larger political purpose need not be discounted.