This is the story of how Home Minister Rajnath Singh very narrowly missed out being India's 15th President. Numerous reports had said that PM Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah were looking at Rajnath Singh as the next President of India. But as we know, it is Ram Nath Kovind who now calls the magnificent Rashtrapati Bhavan as his home.

This is how Rajnath Singh missed the bus.

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley was deputed to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to sound out RSS top leadership on Rajnath's candidature. The RSS unanimously agreed to it and all that was left was for the announcement to be made. But then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Amit Shah to Delhi for a meeting and Rajnath's fortunes changed. Modi told Shah that Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind was the right choice and that the RSS should be informed first followed by Kovind. 

Amit Shah acted immediately. In fact, he did not even mention Rajnath Singh.

Everything took place in 30 minutes. Phone calls were made between New Delhi to many political leaders, the first call the PM made was to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar. That's the long and short of how Rajnath lost out to Kovind.