Pranab Mukherjee’s demise has left the nation with tears. He was the former President of India and had all the capabilities of becoming a Prime Minister. Here are some facts about Pranab Mukherjee that will amaze you and will let you wonder why didn’t become PM?
Pranab Mukherjee nearly became Prime Minister twice. Once in his own mind. And once, in real life before fate intervened. That the first time should have been in 1984 and the second time in 2009 tells us something about how long a political career this remarkable man had. And about how much time he spent near the very pinnacle of our political system.
Pranab Mukherjee was an extraordinary politician, capable of feats of memory outpacing computers. On nearly every subject he dealt with, from Finance to Foreign Policy to Parliamentary Procedure, he was an expert. He was capable of gentle humanity and great humility. And yet he was short-tempered, could be unnecessarily stubborn and often lost his shirt needlessly.
Mukherjee’s first great period in the limelight occurred during Indira Gandhi’s second innings from 1980 to 1984. He had been a minister before that but it was only during her second stint as Prime Minister that Mrs Gandhi came to value his advice and his acute intelligence. He rose quickly to become the man she respected most in her cabinet, was generally regarded as Number Two to her and even managed the cabinet when she was out of the country.
This led to his first abortive brush with the Prime Ministership. There are many stories about what happened that day in 1984, but I will go with the one that Mukherjee himself told me when we found ourselves sitting next to each other on a flight from Delhi to Calcutta in the late 1980s during a period when his career was in a rare eclipse.
