Opinion | What one should study from Pranab Da’s ideas about Narendra Modi

Image Source : INDIA TV Opinion | What one should study from Pranab Da’s ideas about Narendra Modi
Today I wish to share some secrets and techniques about Pranab Mukherjee’s presidential years with you. Over the years, there had been speculations by many concerning the relationship between Pranab Mukherjee and Narendra Modi as President and Prime Minister, Both got here from differing ideological backgrounds and from completely different political events.
 Mukherjee has written extensively about Modi in his memoir “The Presidential Years 2012-2017”which he accomplished earlier than his dying final 12 months. In his e-book, Mukherjee has touched upon his relationship with Modi in glowingly heat phrases. It is, subsequently, vital when a frontrunner like Pranab Mukherjee provides his opinion about Narendra Modi. He was watching the working of Modi authorities from shut vantage place as President of the republic. The President, as head of state, will get necessary feedbacks concerning the authorities of the day. Mukherjee was very a lot privy to many secrets and techniques regarding Modi. Today I wish to share with you what Mukherjee considered Modi as a frontrunner and the insurance policies that he pursued, what he, as President, considered Modi authorities’s financial and overseas insurance policies. Pranab Mukherjee had an enormous expertise as External Affairs Minister and Finance Minister earlier than he turned President. During his 44-year-long stint in energetic politics, he witnessed quite a lot of colors in political beliefs. That is why when Mukherjee writes on matters regarding Modi, each phrase counts. I knew Pranab Da very carefully. I interacted with him ceaselessly and was lucky sufficient to achieve vital insights into the working of the federal government. He had an elephantine reminiscence, was ‘super intelligent’ and his observations have been very a lot deep and incisive. Whatever he has written in his memoir about Narendra Modi is significant, in as we speak’s context. When Modi led his get together to a transparent majority within the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he known as on President Mukherjee. Pranab Da writes: “I congratulated Modi, who requested for some time to speak with me. Using a newspaper clipping, that had reported on my earlier speech hoping for a politically stable mandate, he asserted that he had achieved the objective of a clear majority that I had envisaged. Thereafter, he requested for a week’s time before the swearing-in ceremony. I was surprised at his requested. He insisted that he needed time to address the issue of his successor in his home state, Gujarat.” Mukherjee wrote he was unsure whether or not BJP would get an enormous mandate within the 2014 elections however was impressed on seeing the meticulous planning and arduous work put in by Modi. He wrote: “Only Piyush Goyal, the then national treasurer of the party and now a cabinet minister, was confident that the BJP would get no less than 265 seats, and that the number could go up to 280. I didn’t and still don’t know the reasons for his optimism. However, I took him seriously when he gave me Modi’s detailed electioneering schedule, which was not only gruelling but also painstaking.” Pranab Mukherjee as soon as advised me he was fairly impressed with Narendra Modi’s zeal for arduous work. He advised me, Modi has already set a excessive bar for future Prime Ministers by placing in work as PM for 16 to 18 hours on daily basis. He mentioned, any future Prime Minister’s work will now be in contrast with Modi’s and it will likely be a very powerful job. In his memoir, Mukherjee writes how Modi earlier than being sworn in as Prime Minister in 2014 broached the thought of inviting heads of state and governments of SAARC international locations to the oath taking ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan. Mukherjee wrote: “When Narendra Modi took over as PM, he had absolutely no experience in foreign affairs. As the CM of Gujarat, he had visited some countries, but those visits were limited to engaging for the good of his state, and had little to do with domestic or global foreign policies. Foreign policy was, therefore, a truly uncharted territory for him. But he did what no PM had attempted before: invite the heads of government/state of SAARC nations to his oath-taking ceremony in 2014—and this included Pakistan’s then PM, Nawaz Sharif. “His out-of-the-box initiative took several foreign policy veterans by surprise. As PM-designate, when Modi informed me of his decision, while the date of the oath-taking ceremony was fixed for 26 May 2014, I welcomed the move and advised him to ensure that all necessary security arrangements were in place for the high-profile foreign dignitaries who would visit the country on the occasion…I also believe that he has managed to grasp the nuances of foreign policy quickly.” I utterly agree with Pranab Mukherjee’s observations. During my interview with Prime Minister Modi in the course of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for ‘Salaam India’ present on India TV, Modi had defined intimately how he at all times thought out-of-the-box when assembly with heads of states of different international locations. Modi had mentioned in his interview that for many years he had been watching Indian prime ministers shaking palms meekly with overseas leaders. At that point, he had made up his thoughts that he would change all that if he ever turned PM and meet overseas statesmen on an excellent keel and converse to them eye to eye. Modi additionally revealed how US President Donald Trump took him on a tour contained in the White House and spoke to him extensively about US historical past. Modi disclosed how his late night time assembly on arrival in Moscow, with Russian President Vladimir Putin stretched past midnight. What makes Modi a league other than different prime ministers, has been aptly described by Pranab Mukherjee in his memoir.  In his e-book, Mukherjee famous the nice practices initiated by Modi, resembling communication from the Prime Minister earlier than each overseas go to of the President, through which core factors of bilateral relations have been talked about. “It was a practice initiated by PM Modi”. These are phrases of praises  for  Modi from a politician like Pranab Mukherjee who spent nearly his complete profession within the Congress. These phrases, subsequently, purchase a lot significance, if one contrasts them with the senseless anti-Modi monologues that we see nearly each day on social media these days from Congress leaders. The skilled statesman that he was, Pranab Mukherjee, made a telling comparability between Dr Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi as Prime Ministers. When evaluating Modi with Dr Manmohan Singh, who was named by Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister and “essentially an economist”,  Mukherjee writes: “Modi, on the other hand, became Prime Minister through popular choice after leading the BJP to a historic victory in 2014. He is a politician to the core and had been named the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate as the party went into campaign mode. He was then Gujarat’s CM and had built an image that seemed to click with the masses. He has earned and achieved the prime ministership.” I’ve seen Pranab Da from shut quarters. He was the principle hassle shooter for the Congress get together throughout its 10-year-long UPA rule. Pranab Da was a human being par excellence. He at all times used to look after others. I keep in mind as soon as Narendra Modi turned fairly emotional, when he was narrating what he had learnt from Pranab Da. Modi was, at the moment, new in Delhi, and for him Pranab Da was a father determine, who took care of him. I’ve heard from Pranab Da way more than what he has written and revealed in his memoir. Today at a time when the extent of politics is at a low ebb, I really feel it needed to inform no matter I’ve learnt from Pranab Da. In politics as we speak, I discover that opposition leaders are opposing just for the sake of opposition. There are Congress leaders who consider that since they’re within the opposition, they have to oppose every measure taken by Modi authorities. Whether it’s the launch of Central Vista venture, or approval given to an indigenous Covid vaccine, or following the custom of holding annual Republic Day parade, some opposition leaders suppose they have to oppose the federal government on such points. They will even oppose  farm insurance policies and even the GST, framed by the Congress when it was in energy, solely as a result of they’re being carried out by Modi. One ought to study the artwork of compromise from Pranab Da’s memoir, and may view nationwide curiosity as supreme. The relationship between Pranab Da and Modi underlines the hoary Indian custom of in accordance respect to the one who possesses information. This is the lesson folks in politics should study from Pranab Babu.
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