Jangipur: The legacy of Pranab Mukherjee

A motley group of people converged at a street crossing in this dusty little border town in West Bengal's Murshidabad district as a marble bust of Pranab Mukherjee, the country's 13th President, was unveiled without much fanfare.

Amidst the cacophony of traffic and swirling sand blown in from the 'chars' (sandbars) of Bhagirathi river, Mukherjee, whom some consider to be the "only Prime Minister India never had", stood lonely, almost forgotten, on his 87th birth anniversary on Sunday in this remote corner of the country.

Jangipur was the only Lok Sabha constituency from where he fought and won two consecutive elections at the fag-end of a long political career spanning five decades.

For most of his life, including periods when he chaired cabinet meetings in the absence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Mukherjee had represented various states in the upper house of Parliament, before Jangipur and Mukherjee decided to adopt each other.

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"We will remember him not only for being a remarkable statesman but also for putting Jangipur on the global map," said 89-year-old Mohammad Sohrab, Mukherjee's friend of many years and former school headmaster.

Sohrab, along with local dignitaries and Mukherjee's son Abhijit, who is also a former MP of the constituency, paid homage to the former President.

"The man, who in his lifetime ran most of India's important ministries and emerged as a key deal-maker on the national stage, by coming to Jangipur, rid himself of the accusation that he was a rootless political wanderer," Abhijit said.

Mukherjee started out as a founder member of regional party Bangla Congress, which in coalition with the CPI(M) and several other parties had formed the first non-Congress government in West Bengal in 1967, at a time when industry was stagnating and Left-wing extremism was rife in the state.

Two years later, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha on a Bangla Congress ticket and started making a mark for himself in debates on subjects ranging from a bill to abolish privy purses to support Bangladesh's liberation, grabbing Indira Gandhi's attention.

As per her suggestion, Mukherjee merged his party, of which he was by then the sole representative in Parliament, with the Congress in 1972. Within a year, he was made a deputy minister and his meteoric rise in the world of politics and international diplomacy took off.

He soon became Indira Gandhi's chief troubleshooter and man for all seasons. When Bangladesh's Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated, he was asked to look after Rahman's daughter Sheikh Hasina, forging a lifelong bond to the mutual advantage of both the neighbouring countries.

His elephantine memory and grasp of politics and diplomacy besides his ability to make friends across political boundaries made him an acceptable negotiator, a job, which Indira Gandhi increasingly thrust upon the shrewd politician, making him commerce and then finance minister and her virtual number two in the cabinet.

The day the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her bodyguards in Delhi in 1984, Mukherjee was flying back from Kolkata. He told reporters after her death was announced that the Congress Legislative Party would meet soon to elect a new PM.

Rajiv Gandhi, who took over the job hurriedly that very night, was possibly not too happy with this comment, which some saw as a sign that Mukherjee himself had ambitions for the top job.

After being dropped from the cabinet and sidelined within the party by Rajiv Gandhi, Mukherjee was expelled from the Congress, with accusations of "anti-party activities".

He then floated Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress but later merged it with the Congress in 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi invited him back to the grand old party.

However, his political rehabilitation took place when P V Narasimha Rao, who became the Prime Minister in 1991, brought Mukherjee back from the cold and made him the deputy chairman of the planning commission and later external affairs minister.

When Mukherjee won from Jangipur in 2004 by over 37,000 votes, as a Congress-led alliance swept into power, many expected him to be made the prime minister. However, in a surprise move, Sonia Gandhi chose Manmohan Singh, an economist and former RBI governor, for the job.

Nevertheless, the UPA government that was formed was still seen as run by a troika of leaders -- Singh and Mukherjee from inside the government and Sonia Gandhi in her role as UPA and Congress chief from the outside.

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Regardless of his job profile -- which changed from defence minister to external affairs minister to finance minister -- Mukherjee was the pointsman for the government, chairing more groups of ministers than any prime minister or minister before or after him.

He steered India to sign the defence cooperation and nuclear deals with the United States, and then convinced partymen and allies, many of whom had unhappy memories of the US sending the Seventh Fleet to thwart Indian intervention to help liberate Bangladesh, to back the deals.

The 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai saw Mukherjee sharply retorting when Pakistan rushed to deny the attackers were from bases on its soil by stating: "They (terrorists) have not dropped from the heavens."

In 2012, the Congress leader was pitched as the UPA's candidate for the Presidential race, a contest he won by getting over 7 lakh votes, with a victory margin of over 4 lakh votes over his rival and former Congress colleague Purno Sangma.

In Jangipur, residents exulted as the little-known corner of India basked in reflected limelight.

"Wherever we went, people said we were from Pranab babu's Jangipur, they looked up to us as residents of the President's town," said Mohfuzul Islam, the chairman of the town committee.

Mukherjee's death in 2020, however, marked the end of the town's tryst with glory.

However, an under-construction university, the widening of a vital national highway which runs through the area and a military cantonment remain what Jangipur sees as Mukherjee's legacy.

As the sun set over the narrow strip of land between the twin rivers Bhagirathi, which flows downstream to become the muddy Hooghly and the mighty Padma which forms the international border with Bangladesh, Mukherjee's marble bust lay forlorn amidst wilting garlands of white flowers, staring into the mist which descends every evening on this tiny town located amid fields of paddy and mustard.