New Delhi, June 15: UPA President nominee Pratibha Patil may be little known but senior male ministers in Manmohan Singh’s government are relieved none of their colleagues made the top job.

There were three aspirants in the cabinet — Pranab Mukherjee, Shivraj Patil and Sushil Kumar Shinde. In the mucky negotiations within the UPA and the Left, these three almost lost their honour, though for different reasons.

Yet, a day after Pratibha pipped them, her better known colleagues in the Congress are smiling.

Pranab’s predicament was the most glaring: he was grounded on grounds of efficiency. The foreign minister was told the government could not spare him.

Privately, Pranab’s colleagues launched a whisper campaign that his friends in the Left were pushing his name in spite of Sonia Gandhi’s opinion about his value to the government.

Pranab was so alive to this campaign that he issued two statements distancing himself from the Left and asserting that as a “loyal Congressman” he would do what Sonia deemed fit.

If efficiency went against Pranab, Shivraj had the “non-performer” tag attached to his name. The home minister’s “secular credentials” went on to become the matter of intense debate.

In the melee, nobody in the UPA or the Left bothered to ask a simple question: if Shivraj’s credentials were questionable, why had nobody raised it for three years now?

Shinde was constantly ridiculed as a “lightweight”. His background as a Dalit, a former chief minister, Union minister, governor and AICC general secretary in charge of almost all states and the distinction of winning from a non-reserved parliamentary seat cut no ice with detractors. In the end, his name never came up for serious talks.

Arjun Singh’s humiliations were the worst. The Union human resource minister, who prides himself as a “loyalist” of the Nehru-Gandhi family, was not considered in spite of subtle hints from the Left and M. Karunanidhi.

The plight of the last contender, Karan Singh, was such that in the final hour the former Sadr-e-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir had to run from door to door with copies of his bio data. He was last heard on TV ruing how the nation has missed out on the “best candidate” (himself).

The also-rans have chosen to accept Pratibha’s nomination gracefully. Minutes after she was named, Pranab appealed to all parties and members of the electoral college to extend support to elect her as India’s first woman President.

Sources said the Pranab camp was thanking its stars that Shivraj did not make it. Had he quit his post after being named the UPA nominee, Pranab’s stature could have taken another beating if he was not appointed home minister.

Shivraj has reason to smile because at the end of the day, his days in the home ministry have probably been extended. Perhaps, he was less than confident about his chances from the very beginning.