The problems for Congress continue to mount as along wit inner party confrontation, a new revelations by former President Pranab Mukherjee has invited new criticism. In the book, which will be releasing soon, late Mr. Mukherjee has held former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi for the party’s 2014 defeat.
The former President, who died in August this year, said in the book that some people in the party believed that had he been the Prime Minister, Congress would not had faced defeat in 2014 elections.
“Some members of the Congress have theorized that, had I become the PM in 2004, the party might have averted the 2014 Lok Sabha drubbing. Though I don’t subscribe to this view, I do believe that the party’s leadership lost political focus after my elevation as president. While Sonia Gandhi was unable to handle the affairs of the party, Dr (Manmohan) Singh’s prolonged absence from the House put an end to any personal contact with other MPs,” Mr Mukherjee writes.
The memoir titled “The Presidential Years” will be released in January 2011.
”While Dr Singh was preoccupied with saving the coalition, which took a toll on governance, Modi seemed to have employed a rather autocratic style of governance during his first term, as seen by the bitter relationship among the government, the legislature and the judiciary,” Mukherjee further adds in the book.
While comparing current Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Mukherjee elaborates difference in their styles of working.
“I believe that the moral authority to govern vests with the PM. The overall state of the nation is reflective of the functioning of the PM and his administration. While Dr Singh was preoccupied with saving the coalition, which took a toll on governance, Modi seemed to have employed a rather autocratic style of governance during his first term, as seen by the bitter relationship among the government, the legislature and the judiciary. Only time will tell if there is a better understanding on such matters in the second term of this government,” he writes.
The memoir will recount Mr Mukherjee’s journey from growing up in a remote village in Bengal to becoming India’s first citizen.
