India Vice President Becomes President With Landslide Vote

Vice President Ramaswamy Venkataraman was elected India’s eighth president by a landslide vote today with the backing of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his Congress (I) Party.

As president of India’s 800 million people, the bespectacled, white-haired 76-year-old lawyer, politician and parliamentarian will be titular leader of about one-sixth of the world’s 5 billion inhabitants. However, he will have little but ceremonial powers in the non-executive office.

“You are the real victor,” Venkataraman, a Tamil once jailed by India’s British colonial rulers, told Gandhi at a victory celebration. “The only trouble I took was to sign my nomination papers.”