Kant’s credo: Civil liberties

NEW DELHI: Was there a ''reward'' awaiting Vice-President Krishan Kant, who died early on Saturday, for having been let down in the presidential race by those who made promises they could not keep?The man who remained in the reckoning for at least three days last month after being promised by the powerful people that he was going to be the National Democratic Alliance's nominee may or may not have expected to be rewarded. But questions have arisen since another person, similarly let down, P C Alexander, was allowed to change the course of his career and get elected to the Rajya Sabha.At one point, Krishan Kant's name had been almost final with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee sounding out the Opposition, including the Congress and the Left Front. Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, who had originally supported his candidature for the vice-presidency in 1997 was known to have pushed his case this time as well. But the BJP flip-flop forced Vajpayee to back out on Kant. Born in 1927, son of freedom fighter Lala Achint Ram, Krishan Kant began as a scientist, but soon joined the Quit India Movement. He sought to give a left-of-centre tilt to the Congress policies during the Indira Gandhi era.Arrested during Emergency, he was close to Jayaprakash Narayan. A strong protagonist of India going nuclear, Krishan Kant was a member of the executive council of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA). An advocate of integrating science and sprituality, Kant was the secretary of the Indian Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, of which Jawaharlal Nehru was the president and Lal Bahadur Shastri the chairman.Civil liberties, poll reforms and anti-liquor movement, particularly when he was AP's governor for over seven years, were among the issues that he held dear through his political life.