Simplicity and humility was the USP of the former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam; these two qualities made him the ‘People’s President’.
Now, as the presidential election is round the corner, there is a renewed interest, particularly among youth, to pitch for the candidature of the ‘Missile Man of India’, for the second term.
The social networking sites are abuzz with activity to mobilise support for Kalam to occupy the coveted post. Twitterati and Facebook users are in the forefront of the online campaign in favour of Kalam.
On Facebook, a dedicated page has been created which contains the speeches of the former president and comments by his ardent fans rooting for the second term for him.
Secular Indian
With 5,680 likes on the last count – https://www.facebook.com/APJKalamForPresident— is already making waves in the cyberspace. The FB page “We want APJ Abdul Kalam as President again” contains an appeal to the people to sign up and pitch for Kalam as the next President. It describes him as the “pure, genuine and truly secular Indian”.
“During his first stint as the president, Kalam focussed on transforming India into a developed nation by 2020. We salute his indefatigable spirit to imbibe science into the young minds of our country,” the Facebook page, created in December 2011, said.
The engineering students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad, are all excited over the campaign to mobilise support for Kalam’s candidature. In fact, many of them are not only active in cross-posting the online messages but they’re also on a mission to garner as many ‘shares’ for the FB page as possible.
Kalam had taught a fractional credit course titled “Empowering 3 billion” to the students of IIT (H) early this year. The ‘Vision 2020’— a vision of Kalam for a better India— was the focus of the interactive course. “He connects with the youth like nobody else in this country. He is the ideal candidate for the president’s post,” said Vineeth, a BTech final year student.