To the Congress’s first family, Pranab Mukherjee was an enigma. Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi never had a measure of what to make of him and how much to trust him. That uncertainty addled their relations with the former President whose halcyon years in the Congress were spent under Indira Gandhi’s shadow and patronage. After Indira’s assassination, Mukherjee never recovered his status as the Gandhis’ confidant and adviser although he was never short of positions in the Congress organisation and the government whenever the Congress ruled.
A complex relationship
Mukherjee’s relations with the Gandhis plummeted to a low after Rajiv Gandhi took over as the Congress president and the Prime Minister. The reasons for his exclusion from Rajiv’s cabinet on December 31, 1984, and his expulsion from the Congress, are archived in the Congress’s chronicles. Mukherjee’s laconic comments, recorded in the second volume of his autobiography, The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996, on the unhappy phase were, “All I can say is that he (Rajiv) made mistakes and so did I. He let others influence him....I let my frustration overtake my patience.” He also cloaked his differences with a younger Rajiv in a policy framework, saying that while Rajiv welcomed foreign investments and the economy’s enlargement, Mukherjee favoured a regulated economy. Mukherjee’s traducers accused him of fostering crony capitalism, a hangover of a ‘regulated’ Socialist economic order.
With Sonia, his equation was more complex. He claimed in part three of his memoirs that his “active participation” in the soul-searching Panchmari conclave in 1998 so impressed Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president, that she began consulting him more frequently on policies. That “certain detachment” in their relationship, he said, transformed into “warmth and mutual respect”. Pranab’s artfulness at practising realpolitik was well known to every Congressman. He had helped Indira get rid of AR Antulay when Antulay was the Maharashtra chief minister and the object of a serious economic offence. Likewise, Mukherjee was instrumental in plotting an “unconstitutional coup” against the then Congress head, Sitaram Kesri, on March 5, 1998, and installing Sonia in his place.
The Pranab-Sonia equation
But history had created such a long gap between Sonia and Mukherjee that try as he did, it was never completely bridged. Early on in her tenure as the Congress president, Sonia drafted Manmohan Singh as the chairperson of the crucial strategy committee, overlooking other contenders such as Mukherjee and Arjun Singh, his peer. Did the appointment presage the developments following the Congress’s historic 2004 victory?
Certainly, Mukherjee didn’t think that. In his autobiography – that is telling for revealing his ambition to become Prime Minister more than once – he said the “prevalent expectation” was he would be the occupant of the top job after Sonia declined, based on his “extensive experience” in government. He even pointed out that Singh’s experience was as a civil servant with five years as a “reformist” Finance Minister. Did he have an inkling that he was about to be beaten to the post by alluding to a comparison with Singh? Singh was Sonia’s choice.
Mukherjee candidly said there was speculation if he would work under Singh, his junior when he (Mukherjee) was the Finance Minister. He was reluctant until Sonia persuaded him. According to him, she was keen he take the finance minister’s post, but he refused because of his “ideological” differences with Singh. He wanted Home but Sonia selected Defence that she believed would offer him “maximum autonomy”.
Having missed the opportunity to head the country’s political executive, Mukherjee glimpsed a chance to get Home after the siege on Mumbai in 2008. Shivraj Patil, the incumbent, was under heavy attack for allegedly not being on top of the job. The optics, caused by his penchant for changing his clothes multiple times during the crisis and appearing personable, worsened the popular perceptions about the UPA government. At an internal meeting, in which P Chidambaram, then in charge of Finance, traduced Patil, Mukherjee intervened and said he tried to “bring down the sentiments” by contending a single individual should not be blamed. The post he hoped for went to Chidambaram, sparking speculation that the Tamil Nadu leader was fronted in the charge against Patil. Mukherjee got Finance. His tenure is associated with the controversial “Vodafone tax” wherein he revisited the Double Tax Avoidance Treaty and insisted all tax payers, domestic and foreign, must be treated on a par. He answered the apprehensions voiced by Sonia, Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal over the negative impact his decision would have on overseas investments in India, saying investments came in where there was profitability and not because of zero tax.
Road to becoming President
The Presidential election of 2012 would be documented in the Congress’s annals for the coup d’etat pulled off by Mukherjee against Sonia once he realised that PM-ship was not his to aspire for. As far as she was concerned, she was annoyed by the constant innuendos in circulation, suggesting that Mukherjee could become the Deputy PM. At a rare press conference she addressed in 2006, she angrily nullified the speculation in response to a question. The long rope she gave Mukherjee was cut short then and there.
In the prelude to selecting the UPA’s presidential nominee, Mukherjee still hoped Sonia would choose Singh and make him the PM. Forget the PM’s job, she didn’t even want him as the next Rashtrapati Bhavan occupant. When the message got across, Mukherjee began a discreet campaign among the non-BJP parties to pitch his candidacy. Sonia was considerably weakened two years before the next Lok Sabha polls. The UPA government was mired in corruption charges, the Mukherjee-Chidambaram war was out in the open, the Congress lost state elections, Singh’s credibility had dipped and there were doubts within the Congress over Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s ability to lead the party to another victory.
Sonia’s choice was Hamid Ansari, then the Vice President. She emphasised to Mukherjee he was “indispensable” to the government. His confidants wondered was he that “indispensable” that he was overlooked for prime-ministership and the home minister’s post? Mukherjee won when a majority of the Congress Working Committee members and the regional allies rooted for him.
He dealt another fatal blow to the Gandhis when he visited the RSS’s command post in June 2018 – his tenure as President ended in July 2017 – at the invitation of the ‘sarsanghachalak’, Mohanrao Bhagwat, and addressed a gathering. This, when Rahul Gandhi’s tirade against the Sangh was at its strongest.
Indira’s man to the end
Mukherjee was like a son to Indira. In 1980, when he lost the first election he fought from Bolpur (West Bengal), she summoned him to her residence and reportedly chided him. By the time he left, she saw him off with a basket of fruits.
Even during the UPA years, the only portrait hanging on a wall of his office was a glossy, colour-accentuated close-up of him and Indira, intently perusing a document. If the picture is a gauge, Mukherjee couldn’t be truer to himself because his fealty to the Gandhis began and ended with Indira who in 1969 discovered his talent when he successfully managed VK Krishna Menon’s election from Midnapore. With his passing away, an era comes to an end in the Congress, the only survivors being Patil, Buta Singh and Motilal Vora.
(Radhika Ramaseshan is a Delhi-based political analyst and columnist)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.