India, which got independence in 1947, has seen 14 prime ministers so far and from the days of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the incumbent Narendra Modi, the office of prime minister is highest that anyone can attain. The job and designation of being the prime minister is the top most job and he is the supreme leader of the Indian republic. This topic comes on the back of former president and veteran Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee describing his journey in the public life through his book ‘The Coalition yeas: 1996 to 2012’. It begs a very important and pertinent question of why a statesman like Mukherjee never became India’s prime minister.
India is a land of 29 states and seven union territories and each state has different equations and dynamic and whoever becomes the PM has to be a unifying force and take the country forward. Mukherjee has been in the public life since the days of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and he also served under last Congress PM Manmohan Singh and was always the trouble shooter for the government. The gentleman in question held important and meaty ministries such as finance, home, defence, external affairs, but could never climb the ladder and got the top job.
There are many theories floating around that because he was not well-versed with Hindi, he was at a disadvantage, but we had PM such as PV Narasimha Rao, HD Deve Gowda whose primary language wasn’t Hindi and they still governed India. Another issue that keeps on propping up is that he didn’t enjoy the confidence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but in his book Mukherjee says it wasn’t because of that and he holds Mrs Gandhi in high regard.
The former PM Manmohan Singh recently while launching the book alongside Mukherjee also believed that Mukherjee deserved the top most job and he felt slightly embarrassing to be having Mukherjee in the union cabinet as he was more experienced and seasoned than him and was a leader who was a Lok Sabha MP. With all due respect Singh despite being the prime minister never got elected by people and was a Rajya Sabha member.
Pranab Mukherjee wore many hats and was a politician par excellence and dealt with every issue in various ministries with aplomb. Mukherjee in his book mentions that he got more than he asked for from Congress and despite not being the PM, he became India’s constitutional head and first citizen i.e. President and discharged his duties with full professionalism. In India everyone knows that being president is just a ceremonial post and the powers of a president are very limited and the real power lies with the prime minister.
Pranab Mukherjee whether he accepts or not got a raw deal and at times he must be looking at his long journey in political life and would feel that despite being qualified he couldn’t become the leader of the nation, but that personal ambition never came in the way and his public life was without any controversies and as a hard-core Congress leader he led from the front. As they say life is not fair and is also not a fairy tale and we would never know what would have happened if Pranab Da would have been India’s prime minister.
