B.RAMAN
Political controversies before and during the
Presidential elections are nothing new. We have seen them before. They are part
of the democratic process,
2. I still remember the debate and unhappiness triggered
among large sections of the admirers of Rajaji, particularly in the then undivided
Madras State, over the perceived reluctance of Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime
Minister, to support the nomination of Rajaji, the then Governor-General, for election as the first President of the
Republic of India after the promulgation of the Constitution.
3.Nehru worked hard for the nomination of
Dr.Rajendra Prasad as the first President and he was ultimately elected. Nehru
explained his decision not to support the continuance of Rajaji as the head of
state with the argument that the Congress required his services in the Madras
State, where the Dravidian movement was gathering strength..
4. Nehru’s argument did not convince many of
us---including me---in Madras. We believed in our heart of hearts that Nehru
did not want the independent-minded, the rightist-oriented and the
intellectually brilliant Rajaji as the first President. So, he had him eased
out from Delhi.
5. The new generation of Dravidian leaders then coming
up perceived Nehru’s easing out of Rajaji as reflecting the basic prejudice of
North Indian leaders against those from the South. This added to their
determination to fight for a Dravidian political movement with Dravidian
objectives.
6. Even though we felt unhappy over Nehru’s easing
out of Rajaji, we did not make a drama out of it. We accepted it in our stride
and maintained our sense of political balance. It did not affect our admiration
for Nehru.
7. We faced another controversy during the Presidential
elections of 1969 when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister and V.V. Giri
supported by her and her followers in the Congress Party defeated N.Sanjiva
Reddy, the official candidate of the Party. The controversy was the outcome of
her feelings of humiliation over her views as to who should be the party
nominee not being given importance by the Party leadership, then known as the
Syndicate.
8. Indira Gandhi saw the nomination of Sanjiva
Reddy as the candidate by the Party leadership overriding her objections, as
Prime Minister, to him as an ill-concealed attempt by the Syndicate to restrict
her powers and manoeuvrability as the PM and to use Sanjiva Reddy to keep her
under control.
9. She revolted against this with the support of a
new generation of Congress leaders and ultimately prevailed. Giri was elected
and the designs of the Syndicate to keep her under check failed. Those of us
like me, who had just then joined the corridors of power in Delhi, still
remember the heat and drama that accompanied the election.
10. The drama of 1969 took place at a time of a major
crisis inside the Congress Party, but not in the nation. There was no major
crisis of governance. The economy was doing badly, but not too badly. The
credibility of the Prime Minister was good. The success of Giri supported by
her added to her credibility and
political self-confidence and set in motion a process of psychological upswing
that led to her triumphs of 1971.
11.The tussle for power and influence between her
and the Syndicate in the Party was dramatic and kept the attention of the
nation gripped, but there was nothing petty about it. Regional leaders outside
the Congress fold did not play much of a role in the drama. It was essentially
an in-house drama in the Congress from which she emerged triumphant.
12. The 1969 events were thus largely an inner
party drama which did not have much of a damaging impact on the nation. The
unedifying drama that we are witnessing presently over the forthcoming
Presidential elections marks a total collapse of leadership in the Union
Cabinet as well as in the Congress
Party. It is not an inner party drama.
13.It is a national drama taking place at a time
when governance is in a shambles, when the credibility of the Prime Minister,
never high in the past, has reached its nadir, when the Prime Minister as a
political and constitutional entity has virtually ceased to exist and when the economy is on the
downslide.
14. The drama of 1969 was the result of the
assertion by the Prime Minister of her right to have a say as to who should be
the candidate of the party in the Presidential elections. Nothing illustrates
more ominously the extent of the collapse of the image and the authority of Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh than the fact that he seems
to be playing no role in the current drama. His views just don’t count either
in the Party or in the Government or in the nation.
15. Over the last one year, one had seen the
inexorable withering away of the credibility and the authority of the Prime Minister. We are now witnessing the
process of the withering away of the image and influence of Mrs.Sonia Gandhi
too as the President of the Congress. The maladroit manner in which she has
handled the important prelude to the Presidential elections would bring no
credit to her or her party.
16. The Congress Party, under her leadership, has
totally failed to foresee and appreciate the importance and the likely complexities
of the forthcoming Presidential elections which would be taking place at a time
of national crisis of worrisome proportions.
17. As the leader of the largest single political
formation, one would have expected her to intelligently and imaginatively steer and control the pre-Presidential
political process, keeping the control in her hands all the time while
accommodating the wishes and sensitivities of the coalition partners of her
party. She has badly failed to do so.
18. As a result, the Presidential poll process is
in a roller coaster ride. If this is not arrested, there is a danger of this
roller coaster ride affecting the governance too. One ought to blame two
political leaders for this roller coaster. Mrs.Sonia Gandhi for her inept
handling of the pre-Presidential process and Miss Mamata Banerjee for the way
she has allowed her unfortunate and unsatiated
ego to vitiate the entire process.
19. Now is the time for all well-wishers of the
nation to re-introduce an element of sanity and sobriety into the process.
Dr.Abdul Kalam, the much revered former President and ethical role model, and
Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav, one of the most intelligent political leaders we
have, should decline to let themselves be further used by Miss Mamata Banerjee
in her divisive political games. The search for a consensus candidate and for
an honourable end to the Presidential poll process has to be pursued vigorously.
20. The immediate objective is to arrest this
vitiation and to bring the Presidential poll process to an honourable culmination.
Thereafter, it is important for the Congress
to initiate an exercise for bidding a dignified farewell
to Dr. Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister, to democratise the functioning of the Congress
Party so that its fortunes are not damaged further by a maladroit leadership
and to go for premature elections even at the risk of losing them. The nation
and its economy cannot afford to continue any longer with the present
sleep-walking of Dr.Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet. ( 15-6-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China
Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )
