Former President Pranab Mukherjee thought his presence could've saved Congress from 2014 Lok Sabha drubbing, reveals memoir

Mukherjee said that the Congress leadership lost political focus after his elevation as the country's president

Raising questions on the Congress leadership, former President Pranab Mukherjee, in his memoir, said that he believed the party would not have been reduced to 44 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections if he were active in politics.

Mukherjee, who passed away on August 31 last year, also appeared to have a piece of advice for the crisis-ridden Congress as he said that the leadership of a party in times of crisis has to evolve a different approach.

His comments came in the fourth volume of his autobiography 'The Presidential Years: 2012-2017', which was released on Tuesday.

Laying out the reasons for the Congress' debacle, Mukherjee has said that there was "no escaping the fact" that the party had "failed miserably" to fulfill people's expectations and aspirations.

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Prior to the 2014 election results, he said, he felt that there would be a hung Parliament. Several Congressmen shared their assessment that the party could win 110 to 170 while none of the BJP leaders, except Piyush Goyal who said the BJP would 265 to 280 seats, expected the result as it came out, he said.

Mukherjee never felt that the Congress would perform "so poorly" as even in the elections after the Emergency in 1977, it had managed to win 154 of the 492 seats it contested on, with a vote percentage of 34.52%.

While he did not subscribe to the view of some Congress leaders that the party would have avoided the 2014 drubbing had he been the prime minister in 2004, Mukherjee said the leadership lost political focus after his elevation as the country's president. Before 2014, several allies like the Trinamool Congress, NCP and DMK had left the UPA.

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"Besides, some senior Congress leaders' political naivete and arrogance hurt the fortunes of the party further. I believe that the leadership of a party in times of crisis has to evolve a different approach. If I had continued in the government as finance minister, I would have ensured Mamata’s continuity in the coalition," he wrote.

He also found fault with Sonia Gandhi for the handling of the party in Maharashtra after Vilasrao Deshmukh's death in 2012.

Referring to the anointment of Ashok Chavan and later Prithviraj Chavan as chief ministers, Mukherjee went on to say that Maharashtra was handled badly, partly due to the decisions taken by Sonia Gandhi.

"I would have brought back Shivraj Patil or Sushil Kumar Shinde, considering the dearth of a strong leader from the state, like Vilasrao Deshmukh. I don’t think I would have allowed the state of Telangana to be created. I firmly believe that my presence in active politics would have ensured that the Congress wouldn’t have faced the drubbing it received in the 2014 general elections," he wrote.

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The Congress, which was a dominant player in the undivided Andhra Pradesh with the party winning a huge number of Lok Sabha seats, was decimated after the state was bifurcated. It also lost the pole position in Maharashtra.

In 2014, Mukherjee had expected a hung Parliament with the BJP emerging as the single-largest party with 195-200 seats.

In the autobiography, Mukherjee revealed his thoughts on government formation in such a scenario and said he would not have hesitated to go beyond the convention and invite the Congress to form the government even if it had emerged with fewer seats but promised a stable government, keeping in mind its previous record in managing coalition governments successfully.

"This would have been in contravention of the convention established by the former president, Shankar Dayal Sharma, of inviting the single-largest party to form the government. He had invited Vajpayee to form the government after a hung House in 1996, despite lack of clarity on Vajpayee’s numbers. I was convinced even before the 2014 elections that I would not be neutral between stability and instability," he said.