Pranab Mukherjee: A 'vintage' politician

Name any political position of authority and he is most suitable for it. Think of any crisis and he is the man who will use his tact and political acumen to douse it off.  He is Pranab Mukherjee, the  'vintage' man of Indian politics. An industrialist who benefited immensely from the pre-liberalisation days of  'Licence Raj', once jocularly likened him with "vintage wine, getting better with each passing year".

And Pranab Mukherjee's efficient handling of difficult situations is not confined within the country. No wonder he is despatched to meet the US President to mitigate any obstacle coming in the way of the civilian nuclear deal or to represent India in the high table of G20 countries.

The most efficient crisis manager of the Manmohan Singh government and the Congress is possibly not the most trusted man of the party high command. Gone are the days, when Pranab Mukherjee used to be the most trusted lieutenant of Indira Gandhi. It was she who spotted Pranab Mukherjee's talent, while he was delivering a speech in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament, supporting bank nationalisation, a pet political project of Indira Gandhi.

Since then Pranab Mukherjee has shown unflinching loyalty to Indira Gandhi, so much so that the former Prime Minister once remarked that if he was hit on the head with a hammer, nothing but smoke would come out of his mouth. Once a chain pipe smoker, Pranab Mukherjee has now quit smoking but his loyalty and respect for Indira Gandhi remains unchanged.

The political acumen of Pranab Mukherjee taught him where the power rests and this guided him not once but twice to be on the right side of it. Firstly, when he deserted his political mentor Ajoy Mukherjee, of the Bangla Congress, to side with the Congress led by Indira Gandhi in the early 1970s and again when he chose to side with his leader after her colossal defeat in 1977.

Pranab Mukherjee was aptly rewarded for his unflinching loyalty. He occupied the second position in the Indira Gandhi cabinet, despite not winning a single election, based on popular mandate. But it was this trust and loyalty which went against him when Rajiv Gandhi assumed power, after his mother's brutal assassination.

It is widely believed that Pranab Mukherjee aspired to be Prime Minister after Indira Gandhi's assassination. But sources close to a veteran journalist, who was privy to a conversation between Rajiv Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee and late Congress leader A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury on their way to Delhi from Kolkata after Indira Gandhi's assassination, said Pranab Mukherjee only offered to undertake the interim position in the event of a constitutional bottleneck coming in the way of making Rajiv Gandhi the Prime Minister.

My sources said the story on Pranab Mukherjee's prime ministerial ambition was the handiwork of A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury, Pranab Mukherjee's one time bete noire in the party, then Home Minister P V Narsimha Rao, and Rajiv Gandhi's close friends Arun Nehru and Arun Singh. While the party veterans (A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury and P V Narsimha Rao) wanted to make sure that the trust of the Gandhi family on Pranab Mukherjee was vitiated, the namesakes (Arun Nehru and Arun Singh) hatched the conspiracy theory to isolate Rajiv Gandhi from the most trusted person of his mother.

As history would show, this paved the way of V P Singh becoming the Finance Minister in the Rajiv Gandhi cabinet and the expulsion of Pranab Mukherjee from the party. Pranab Mukherjee later confided that he never deserted the Congress, it was the party high command which threw him out. Although Pranab Mukherjee was taken back in the party but by that time the damage was done. Rajiv Gandhi was thrown out of power and the 'hate campaign' launched by V P Singh and his friends like K Karunanidhi, Jyoti Basu and Arun Nehru indirectly contributed to Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.

An inappropriate decision by Rajiv Gandhi to expel Pranab Mukherjee in 1985 indirectly contributed to his brutal killing. A similar mistake, of not projecting Pranab Mukherjee as a consensus presidential candidate after Pratibha Patil demits office, would tantamount to a political blunder for the country.

At a time when Manmohan Singh has turned into a lame duck Prime Minister without any real authority in office and the entire political class facing serious public apathy following charges of large scale corruption and lack of governance, the political mind in Pranab Mukherjee, holding the  presidency, can add some shine and bestow some faith on the institutions of politics in the country.

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