Who will be India's next president? Really.

It’s time for another season of  Kaun Banega Rashtrapati. No one even really knows the candidates but everyone’s playing the guessing game.

India’s next president should be “non-political.” Or “apolitical.” “Apolitical with political and legal knowledge.” “A consensus candidate.” “A person of merit.” That’s just “middle-class fantasy” scoffed political commentator Paranjoy Guha Thakurta to Outlook . “We can speculate on non-political names to amuse ourselves, but it’s a political exercise.”

“Whoever is chosen for the post, the qualification should not revolve around caste or community or political biases,” writes Rajdeep Sardesai in the Hindustan Times. That’s what it SHOULD be. But that was in the old days when one party was all powerful and didn’t feel quite so paranoid and threatened. Then it could afford to elevate the Radhakrishnans and Zakir Hussains. Now everyone is looking for the best rubber stamp president it can get away with.

Here’s the great media round up (slightly tongue-in-cheek) about the topic nobody really knows the answer to – who will be India’s next President?

The Office Bearers

President Pratibha Patil

This is the only consensus that’s clear. Pratibha Patil, our first woman president, will not be given a second term. The “Tai of Fizzle,” as Outlook dubbed her, has been unremarkable at best, embarrassing at worst. Her foreign trips, her retirement home, her overly visible husband, the son who was given a Congress ticket – none of that has gone down well. “And frankly, everyone above the age of 70 looks silly in a fighter pilot uniform,” writes Indrajit Hazra in the Hindustan Times  saying she looks too much like “something that walked out of a time capsule.” After her retirement home debacle a good question for any candidate might be “Do you own your own house already?”

 Vice President Hamid Ansari

Plus - Lalu Prasad Yadav gave him the nod of approval. He called him “competent”. The Left could support him because they had proposed his name for VP. He’s a career diplomat and knows how to handle himself.

Minus – Lalu Prasad Yadav gave him the nod of approval. The Opposition has not forgiven him for his infamous adjournment of the Rajya Sabha during the Lokpal debate. The Left wanted him as VP and whatever the Left proposes, Didi opposes.

Speaking of the Left there’s the eternal candidate Dr. Karan Singh, who on paper has all the qualifications to be President but the Left scuttled his chances because of his royal pedigree. Now that the Left is weaker, maybe his chances are better.

Speaker Meira Kumar

Plus - Shaant ho jaaiye is a good catch phrase for Rashtrapati Bhavan. Her name is on every list as “a popular choice.”

Minus - Alas, Pratibha Patil has already fulfilled the women’s quota for now. The old boys club won’t be too keen to go for another woman quite so soon says _Economic Time_s. So poor Meira Kumar, like her late father Jagjivan Ram, might be eternally the bridesmaid and never the bride.

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The Politicians

Manmohan Singh

Plus – He has lost the confidence of the urban middle class and this would be a good way for Madam to kick him upstairs without looking like an ingrate. The UPA can pretend it’s beginning “on a clean slate” says Afternoon Despatch & Courier and get in a wilier politician in the PM’s gaddi to halt the party’s electoral slide. The PM might not be averse to a stint in the Rashtrapati spa to “calm his frayed nerves” and wipe out “all the bad karma” as a “dysfunctional Prime Minister” a 10, Janpath source told Firstpost.

Minus – Sonia Gandhi needs to find a likely replacement for Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister . After the Antony-Army Chief debacle Pranab-da would be the man to replace him as PM “but given the trust deficit between him and Madam, his prime ministerial ambitions are unlikely to be fulfilled,” says Afternoon Despatch & Courier.

Pranab Mukherjee

Plus - Pranab-da is ready to retire from active politics. The Telegraph says many in the Congress consider him “the best man for the President’s job”. But Mukherjee has also said there’s more “support for his candidature as president outside his party than within.

Minus - His problem is he’s too “indispensable.” Where will the Congress find a man, asks The Telegraph, who can handle “all kinds of subjects, from financial to political, through dozens of groups of ministers, the cabinet and Parliament”? He is Sonia’s Mr. Fix-it even as she has her “trust deficit” problems with him. Pranab-da’s only chance is if the other parties want him as a consensus candidate.

 P A Sangma / A K Antony

Plus -There has been a Hindu, Muslim and Sikh president but not a Christian one as yet. Antony is a Gandhi loyalist and has a Mr. Clean rep. Meanwhile Nationalist Congress Party’s P A Sangma is a Roman Catholic. He’s actually a three-in-one – first Christian, first tribal, first Northeasterner. NCP chief Sharad Pawar has good equations across party lines and could push for him.

Minus – Antony’s handling of the army chief controversy was not exactly stellar. And it’s still a little fresh in people’s memories. Sangma, says ET, is getting a little too cozy with Mamata Banerjee, UPA’s in-house tormenter-in-chief. Also “the circumstances under which he quit the Congress party will not find favour with the loyalists,” says DNA. The issue is the UPA’s touchiest subject - Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origins. He’s said sorry but is that sorry enough to be President?

Mulayam Singh Yadav

Plus – The UPA needs him desperately so that it’s not entirely dependent on Didi’s whims. Mulayam gave up the top job in UP to his son to focus on Delhi anyway. The Samajwadi Party with its new-found post UP clout is sounding out other parties reports Indian Express. SP’s Rajya Sabha MP Kiranmoy Nanda called on Mamata Banerjee recently. “Now Netaji cannot be the CM. He can try for the PM’s chair, but this cannot be guaranteed. So the best option left is to make an attempt to enter the Rashtrapati Bhavan,” said a senior SP leader told Indian Express.

Minus – That old goonda party reputation. The mind is willing but the flesh is weak. He is 75 and not in great health. Some in his party think he should still keep himself “in contention for the PM’s post in 2014.”

In the other politiciasn category there’s also Parkash Singh Badal. The Shiromani Akali Dal chief’s name has been doing the rounds as a vice presidential candidate. But the Sunday Guardian  says the Left could back him if the NDA proposes his name.

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The Non-politicians

 A P J Abdul Kalam

Plus – He is a known quantity. Hopefully there are no nasty surprises there. “We always had a soft spot for Kalam,” a BJP secretary said. Given the anti-corruption fever these days the story of the retired scientist who was living in a single room in a university hostel in Chennai and did not even own a cell phone is a made-for-television dream narrative.

Minus – Congress, battered as it is, is still the largest party in power and it does not want the NDA’s leftovers. “Speculating over the Kalam’s name is a sheer waste of time,” a senior leader told The Telegraph. Also Mulayam Singh Yadav is slowly backing away from Kalam.

Gopal Krishna Gandhi

Plus - The Gandhi last name, officially a non-politician, urbane and scholarly, he spoke his mind on the Nandigram killings (which Mamata will like). He was President K. R. Narayanan’s secretary so he knows where the bathrooms are in Rashtrapati Bhavan. He just had a luncheon meeting with Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday. “There was no discussion regarding the presidential elections,” Patnaik told The Telegraph calling it a “courtesy visit.” That sounds like confirmation that presidential elections were very much on the lunch menu.

Minus - Might be a little too independent minded and now low-profile enough for the powers that be (again that Nandigram reaction).  This will be very confusing to foreign media who will keep pinning him to the wrong Gandhi. Not to mention endlessly mangle his name into Ghandi.

 The Dark Horses

Sam Pitroda

Plus – By some strange editorial consensus every media article about him calls Sam Pitroda “the dark horse”. Harsh Goenka through his weight behind him in Economic Times   saying “This man of ideas will be in keeping with our image of a modern, tech-savvy nation on the rise." NRIs love him. He has Rahul Gandhi’s ear and is also an advisor to Mamata on her “resurgent Bengal”. “He could be seen as the Congress’ answer to Kalam, a meritocratic and essentially apolitical technocrat,” writes Tehelka. He is an OBC and he’d also be the first Gujarati president.

Minus- However, there are others who feel Pitroda has little chance says Tehelka mysteriously.

Other technocrats: Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji. These are just social media fantasies partly fueled by an off-the-cuff remark by Abdul Kalam when asked by a company employee what he thought of Narayana Murthy as President. “Fantastic,” the former Prez had replied. As for Premji, the Tatas had a Facebook page devoted to his candidacy saying “there is no more capable person.”

Just for fun

Waheeda Rehman

“The lovely Waheeda Rehman who has mesmerised generations with her acting and grace, might just pip these stalwarts to the post,” gushes Dilli Gupshup. She is just the apolitical person who could make everyone happy. “My suggestion would be Waheeda Rehman, a pan-national iconic figure, grace incarnate, a Padma Bhushan recipient and with all the right ‘political’ parameters,” writes Indrajit Hazra in HT. We’ve had a woman president who followed a Muslim president. Now we can have them followed by a Muslim woman president.

Other film stars: There’s always Amitabh Bachchan. Who better to be the KRC winner than the original KBC man?. “He knows how to pose for cameras,” says Tushar Gandhi. People might tune in to his Republic Day address. It also might stop him from tweeting endlessly.

And that’s it for this edition of KBR. But here are some parting words of wisdom from a Congresswalla to Tehelka: “When was the last time a candidate, whose name was out in the open for months before the election, actually ended up being elected president?”

So say lock kya jaaye at your own risk.