Pranab Mukherjee is the Smartest Political Operator
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee knows very clearly that the days of the Congress as the ruling party are numbered due to the many financial scams and personal scandals of its dishonest, corrupt and immoral leaders. For a long time, Pranab Mukherjee had wanted to be the Prime Minister of India, but the other top Congress leaders had never allowed him to get that post.
Now Pranab Mukherjee knows that the time has almost run out for the continuation of Congress rule in India. So it is not a bad idea for him to think of becoming the next President of India after the term of the present President Pratibha Patil ends in July this year. As he cannot become the Prime Minister, the next best thing for Pranab Mukherjee is to become the President of India.
As the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee has failed to solve many of the major economic problems of India. Before the economic problems get worse, the smartest politician wants to get away from the Finance Ministry. Instead of getting punished for his failures, he wants the UPA to give him the post of President as a gift!
As India's smartest political operator at present, Pranab Mukherjee has used another smart political operator Mulayam Singh Yadav to outwit and deliberately deceive Mamata Banerjee. After she met him a few days back, the cunning and hypocritical Mulayam Singh Yadav made Mamata Banerjee announce that the two leaders preferred Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former President APJ Abdul Kalam or ex-Speaker of Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee as the new President of India after President Pratibha Patil retires. The next day, Mulayam embarrassed Mamata by declaring that he accepted the Congress Party's nominee Pranab Mukherjee as the candidate for the post of President.
In the elections to the State Assemblies 3 months back, the Congress Party lost very badly in Uttar Pradesh, Panjaab and Goa. Now Jaganmohan Reddy's YSR Congress has severely mauled the Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh by winning the by-elections to most of the seats in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and also by getting the Lok Sabha seat of Nellore with a massive margin. These are very clear signs that the Congress Party and its UPA coalition partners are going to fare very badly in the next Lok Sabha elections.
While all the other Congress leaders will soon lose their jobs as ministers, the extremely smart fellow Pranab will remain the President of India for 5 years, once he gets elected to the post. Whether the Congress wins or loses in the next Lok Sabha elections, it would not affect Pranab Mukherjee, as he could remain safely lodged in the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Even if the Congress Party gets badly beaten and crushed in the next Lok Sabha elections, it will be almost impossible to remove anyone from the President's post. Among all the top Congress leaders, only Pranab Mukherjee could then have the heartiest laugh, as he would be having the most secure job of the President of India for a full term of 5 years. Of course, he must first win the election to the post of President.
Ashok T. Jaisinghani.
Editor & Publisher:
----- Original Message -----
From: S. Kalyanaraman
Sent: 16 Jun 2012 6:41 AM
Subject: Pranab as Presidential candidate. What next, to save the nation?
15.6.12
Pranab as Presidential candidate.
What next, to save the nation?
So unfit Pranab will roam the lawns of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
I want to recall the words of Rajaji: "Brutal facts, blatant facts, inconvenient facts, ugly facts and vulgar facts do not cease to exist by our cussed refusal or ignorance to recognize them". The facts brought out in this blogpost will stay and rate Pranab's emergency conduct as a disgusting footnote in the nation's history.
The last date announced by Election Commission for filing nominations is 30 June 2012.
There are two weeks' time available to deliberate on the options open to nationalists who care for the abhyudayam of present and future generations of the youngest nation of Bharatam on the globe.
The electoral college consists of MPs and MLAs with a skewed weightage system which gives dominance to the vote of MPs. While an MP's vote has a value of 700+, an MLA's vote has only a value of about 2+ (varies depending upon the population of the state/territory).
Anyway, the electoral college consists entirely of politicians with party affiliations (and hence, subject to party whips) with some nominated / independent members who may or may not have party-loyalties.
How to reach out to this electoral college with a note on the key issues involved in the Presidential election?
In my view, probity and moral conduct in public life of a Presidential candidate is a very important criterion. Pranab is a prima facie unfit candidate on this criterion.
Is a contest necessary?
Yes. Because the key criterion of probity and moral conduct in public life should get posited as a major issue in the election, just as Loknayak Jayaprakash posited justice as the key criterion to reject Indira Gandhi's emergency regime.
Many names have been suggested as Presidential candidates. Will there be one among them who will come forth to offer himself / herself as a candidate to fight it out against Pranab -- in a situation where SoniaG has successfully trivialised the institution of Presidency, just as she has trivialised the institution of Parliament? If such a person emerges, the opposition parties who want to reject UPA II regime should make him / her their candidate in the Presidential poll.
At this stage, I should pay a tribute to three persons who have come out tall and proved themselves to be true national leaders: Dr. Subramanian Swamy, Didi Mamata Banerjee and Shri Lal Krishna Advani. They have shown the sagacity to choose a person like Bharat Ratna Abdul Kalam whose probity and moral conduct in public life is beyond reproach. In the present situation, if he agrees to contest with the possibility of losing in the poll, he should be the first choice of the opposition parties.
In case he says, no, there should be other candidates who should be considered. Let not the opposition parties lose heart and choose NOT to fight in the Presidential poll. There is honor in just the fight itself. Lose or win is of secondary consequence. Sure, fight to win, start convincing that there should be a conscience vote in the poll and political parties should desist from issuing a party whip. Let there be an opportunity given to the members of the electoral college to fulfil their responsibility in voting for the candidate who will make the nation stronger by holding the exalted office of Mahamaheem Rashtrapati.
Post-election, it is likely SoniaG will nominate RahulG as the Leader of the UPA in Parliament as a first step in inducting him into Prime Ministership after a midterm poll which is likely anytime after August 2012.
Dr. Subramanian Swamy @Swamy39 tweeted: "The Kalaam case was based on two assumptions. First Vishkanya has a spine as all rakshashis do. Second Mulayam has a spine. Both were wrong."
Another way of looking at this is to rate SoniaG as a person who has standards of morality different from other politico-s and may have taken a calculated risk in anointing Pranab as Presidential candidate (with good chances of success). She has taken a risk because he may or may not accept her nomination of RahulG as PM. The risk is that he may cite foreign Italian nationality as the reason for denying RahulG's claim to be PM. Well, she has taken the risk.
Just as some people claim that compulsions of circumstances to justify Pranab's conduct during emergency, some people may continue to claim that Mulayam was compelled by circumstances to backstab Mamata. After all, Mulayam was the one who felt 'compelled' to support the nuke deal with or without financial doles mentioned (yet to be determined by the due process of law). There is enough prima facie evidence that money-power played the key role in nuke deal vote; the rate rumoured often is Rs. 25 crores per vote. Anyway, that is an indication of the then inflated rate of corruption which may have now reached astronomical proportions when the unit of Indian corruption is measured in terms Rs. 5 lakh crores, be it 2G spectrum, be it the ilmenite sands loot along the coastline of Bharatam.
So, what next?
Let the opposition political parties resolve to make a fight of it in Presidential poll. Choose a candidate with probity and exemplary moral conduct and offer a clear choice to the electoral college members to exercise their conscience and vote for the abhyudayam of the nation.
This has to be done to ensure that the key institutions of the electoral college and Presidency are NOT put on sale and are enhanced in prestige under the nation's Constitution.
If the opposition chooses not to take a stand, it will certainly be a key opportunity lost to impress upon the citizens of the nation, the responsibility owed by the polity to set aside partisan considerations and think of the national interest as the sine qua non and to underscore the imperative of setting standards of morality in political life.
S. Kalyanaraman
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