Appeal for Christian president in India

May 05, 2012: As the race for the next presidential candidate hots up, the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) today made a strong pitch for a Christian president.

"The Christian community has been ignored so far, perhaps unintentionally. We want to appeal to all the political parties to rectify this deficit by electing a Christian as India's next president," an NCCI statement said.

The council that represents more than 13 million people across the country argued that despite Christians being the second largest minority in India, there has been no president from the community in the country so far.

However, other minorities such as Sikhs and Muslims have had presidents from their communities.

"We want to underline here that the quality of India's governance process and our country's global standing among the comity of nations will increase manifold through this noble gesture," the NCCI statement added.

Claiming that the Christian community was on the verge of a “deep collective alienation” which was not articulated so far, the statement said the emerging negative trend needed to be nipped in the bud.

It said that it is high time the Christian community’s historical and contemporary contributions were formally acknowledged by electing a member as the head of the state.