From her days as a lawyer in Jalgaon to becoming the first woman President of India, Pratibha Patil has seen the rough and tumble of politics including an unusually bitter campaign on her way to Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The 72-year-old Congress loyalist held several posts in Maharashtra besides being deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha and governor of Rajasthan, but her role in the cooperative movement in her state was at the centre of a controversy in the run-up to the presidential election.
Set to break the male bastion in Rashtrapati Bhavan, Pratibha, fielded by the United Progressive Alliance-Left combine, brings with her a wealth of experience both as a politician and an administrator.
Pratibha, who defeated National Democratic Alliance-backed independent candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat by a comfortable margin, will be the country's 13th President.
Nearly eight years after her tenure as a Lok Sabha member ended in 1996, Pratibha, a staunch supporter of the Nehru-Gandhi family, had gone into a virtual political wilderness before she was brought in as Rajasthan's governor in November 2004.
Image: Election Commission officials open a ballot box during the counting. Electronic voting machines were not used.
Photographs: Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
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