Pranab should have been made PM in 2012: Aiyar

December 15, 2024 11:56

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar/File image

Pranab Mukherjee should have been given the reins of the UPA-II government and Manmohan Singh elevated to President when the office of Rashtrapati presented an opening in 2012, veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar says in his latest book.

The 83-year-old Aiyar states in the book that if this step had been taken, the UPA would not have gone into a "paralysis of governance".

He says the decision to retain Manmohan Singh as the PM and shift Pranab Mukherjee to the Rashtrapati Bhawan "doomed" any prospects the Congress might have had to form UPA-III.

Aiyar puts forward these ideas in his forthcoming book A Maverick in Politics published by Juggernaut.

In the book, Aiyar talks about his early days in politics, navigating through the Narasimha Rao years, his time as a minister in UPA I, his Rajya Sabha term and then his "decline...fade out...fall".

"In 2012, the prime minister (Manmohan Singh) underwent operations for multiple coronary bypasses. He never quite recovered physically. It slowed him down and this showed up in governance. As for the party, there was no official announcement about the Congress president's health when she took ill at about the same time as the PM," Aiyar says.

It soon became clear that in both the offices --? the PM's and the party president's -- there was stasis, a distinct absence of governance, while several crises, particularly Anna Hazare's 'India Against Corruption' movement, were either not handled effectively or not handled at all, says the diplomat-turned-politician. -- PTI

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