'If Pranab Was PM, Cong Would Have...'

'...still have lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but could have won 140 seats.'

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has said the party could have saved itself the ignominy of sinking to 44 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections if it had sent Manmohan Singh -- the then prime minister -- to Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2012, and replaced him with Pranab Mukherjee.

In an interview to journalist Karan Thapar, released on a media portal on Wednesday, December 18, 2024 evening, Aiyar discussed the second volume of his autobiography, A Maverick in Politics, where he has reminisced about the time he tried to persuade Dr Singh to join the Trinamool Congress and contest the 1998 Lok Sabha polls from the erstwhile North West Calcutta constituency.

He also spoke about his relationship with the Gandhi family, his admiration for Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whom he described as "a good man" and his "intense dislike" for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to Aiyar, the United Progressive Alliance II government and the Congress party became leaderless in 2012 as Dr Singh and Sonia Gandhi, who headed the government and the party, respectively, were unwell.

Dr Singh at the time underwent six bypass surgeries and Sonia travelled abroad for treatment.

As the Kisan Baburao Hazare-led India Against Corruption movement began, UPA II started to fall apart.

It was at this time, Aiyar says, that the Congress should have got Dr Singh elected President to honour his contribution in nation building and elevated Mukherjee as the PM.

The Congress, the former diplomat, believes would have still lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but not sunk to 44 seats, and could have won 140 seats.

Aiyar spoke at length about his rapport with Rajiv Gandhi when he served as a joint secretary in the prime minister's office, and about his relationship with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.

The 84-year-old former Union minister said that Rahul considers him "a political liability" and "too old" to be sent to Parliament.

On Rahul's leadership abilities, Aiyar said that he believes Rahul will, when and if he becomes the PM, "reveal" the qualities of head and heart, to become a good prime minister.

Aiyar termed it a Nehru-Gandhi "family trait" that they become good prime ministers, which was true not just for Rajiv Gandhi but also Indira Gandhi.

According to Aiyar, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who during his years at Trinity College, Cambridge, came to know Rajiv and much later Rahul as well, told him that Rahul is "much the brighter of the two".

On his offer to Dr Singh in January 1998 to join the TMC, Aiyar said that his party leader Mamata Banerjee agreed with his proposal to field Dr Singh from the erstwhile North West Calcutta seat, and suggested that he could be the prime minister after the results, which were likely to produce a hung verdict as happened in 1996.

When Aiyar met Dr Singh and told him about the proposal, the latter said, "This country will never accept a Sikh as prime minister."

Six years later, when Sonia Gandhi chose him to be PM in 2004, Dr Singh was bewildered and told him he had not expected this at all, Aiyar said.

Aiyar also spoke about his disagreement with then Union home minister P Chidambaram's strategy to counter the growing influence of Maoism in tribal areas, but blamed a newspaper misquoting his criticism of Chidambaram leading to Sonia Gandhi not speaking with him for ten years.

As for his views on Vajpayee and Modi, Aiyar said the former did not allow his Sangh Parivar background to communalise his prime ministership.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com