'If Pranab Mukherjee were made PM...': Veteran leader on Cong's fall

New Delhi: Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar opined that if Pranab Mukherjee had made Prime Minister and Dr Manmohan Singh the President in the 2009 general elections, the result of the 2014 elections would have been different, and the Congress would not have faced a humiliating defeat, PTI reported.

Speaking to the news agency on the release of his new book, A Maverick In Politics, Aiyar said that the major factor behind Congress’ fall that year was “no governance” in 2013. The former Union minister said that 2014 results were the all-time worst for Congress with just 44 seats in the Lok Sabha when it had won 414 seats in 1984, the polls followed the death of Indira Gandhi.

"You see, in 2012, we had two disasters taking place: one was that Sonia Gandhi fell very ill, and Dr Manmohan Singh had six bypasses. So, we were crippled at the head of the government and at the head of the party," the 83-year-old told PTI.

"But there was one man who was still full of energy, full of ideas, had a certain amount of charisma, and could have run either the party or the government or even both. And that was Pranab Mukherjee. So, Pranab Mukherjee says in his own biography, what I had guessed at that time, that he was hoping that he would be made Prime Minister in place of Dr Manmohan Singh and that Dr Manmohan Singh would be given due respect as the President of India, as somebody who had made a huge contribution to the development of our country," Aiyar said.

"And if that had happened, if Dr Manmohan Singh had become the President and Pranab had become the PM, I still think we would have lost in 2014 (Lok Sabha polls), but not by this massive humiliating defeat that we actually had, where we fell to 44 seats," he added.