Pranab likely to give new dimension as President
written by Sanjay K. Jha
Monday, 23 July 2012 08:17
Former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee was elected President on Sunday. Photo: AFP.
New Delhi:Minutes after his landslide victory on
Sunday, President-elect Pranab Mukherjee said: “Now I have been
entrusted with the responsibility to protect, defend and preserve the
Constitution. I will try to justify in a modest way as I can to be
trustworthy.
It also served to inspire an almost unreasonable degree of hope among
non-Congress parties, primarily about a new era of Presidential
activism that would demolish the notion that the post is truly
ceremonial and suited best for rubber-stamps.
The expectation emanates from the perception of an uneasy
relationship Mukherjee had with the first family of the Congress,
further accentuated by Sonia Gandhi’s decision to make Manmohan Singh
the Prime Minister in 2004 and 2009. Opinion leaders in politics and
outside still believe Sonia picked Mukherjee for President under duress,
although insiders claim that the phase of trust-deficit had long been
over.
But there is no denying that most leaders in non-Congress
formulations, including the BJP that opposed him, are hoping against
hope that Mukherjee’s tenure would witness more “interesting times” than
that of Pratibha Patil. It is another matter that Mukherjee’s
rebellious instincts are overrated and his tendency to stick to the
rulebook is well documented.
Mukherjee has an excellent rapport with leaders in other parties but
Congress colleagues refuse to believe he will ever do anything to harm
the interests of the party that brought him to Rashtrapati Bhavan, an
address he so desperately wanted.
But they are not sure if he will go out of his way to help the party
leadership like some other Presidents have done, bringing disrepute to
the office.
While opposition leaders will be happy if Mukherjee remains
objective, expectations about an unforeseen phase of Presidential
activism are so high that a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party,
currently at loggerheads with the Congress, jubilantly told
The Telegraph: “Wait, Indian politics will now enter a very interesting phase. Mukherjee won’t be a rubber stamp.”
Most Raj Bhavans and Rashtrapati Bhavan under some Presidents have been burial grounds for constitutional morality in the past.
Although the first President, Rajendra Prasad, demonstrated streaks
of activism and sought to re-open the chapter of presidential powers
already settled by the Constituent Assembly, there have been Presidents
like Giani Zail Singh, who explored the possibility of dismissing Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi because of personal conflicts, and later APJ Abdul
Kalam, who almost strayed into a misadventure possibly because he was
not aware of the finer points.
The example of President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signing at midnight a
proclamation for Emergency without the approval of the Union cabinet
also stands out.
Mukherjee may not have had the opportunity yet to exhibit as high an
intellectual calibre as Rajendra Prasad or S Radhakrishnan but he does
embody the best and the worst of the Congress. If he understands the
value of consensual politics and the middle path, he has also been party
to the intrigues and conspiracies of the Congress, which wantonly used
the office of governor for partisan political ends. Mukherjee never
spoke up against such constitutional improprieties.
Mukherjee belongs to a genre of politicians who laid maximum emphasis
on leadership and too little on institutions, as witnessed during the
Indira era, and survived because of the high command’s patronage, not on
the strength of mass support.
Prime Minister Manmoahn Singh and President elect Pranab Mukherjee
greet outside the residence of Mukherjee in New Delhi on July 22, 2012.
Photo: AFP.
He later bloomed in an atmosphere in which the tendency to use
political power as a means of personal aggrandisement was at its peak
and politics of posturing, compromises and betrayals had become the
norm.
Mukherjee came to the forefront of national politics when the
Congress system was in moral decline, regional forces were asserting
themselves and the polity was deeply fragmented. The next general
election may throw up a more fractured verdict, bringing Mukherjee into a
vital role as he will have to decide which model to follow for the
installation of the government.
While Shankar Dayal Sharma committed the mistake of inviting the BJP
to form the government that fell in 13 days, MK Narayanan set a
precedent of asking for letters of support to ensure stability of the
regime.
But the opposition’s hope that Mukherjee will follow Narayanan’s
model of “working President” and take activism to a new level can also
be misplaced as he likes to follow Nehruvian principles.
Nehru had said: “Power really resided in the ministry and in the
legislature, not in the President as such. At the same time, we did not
want to make the President a mere figurehead. We did not give him the
real power but we have made his position one of authority and dignity.”
That school of thought believes the President can act only on the
advice of the council of ministers and does not have the right to
criticise the government publicly, although he can guide or warn the
Prime Minister tacitly.
Mukherjee knows the system too well to create scope for intervention
if he so desires, creating problems for the government of the day,
something the outgoing President chose not to do.
Article 78 of the Constitution says: “The President must be kept
informed by the Prime Minister about the affairs of administration and
proposals for legislation including all decisions of the cabinet from
time to time. He must be supplied with such other information by the
Prime Minister about administration of the country as he might call for.
He can ask the Prime Minister to submit the decision of any minister
for consideration of council of ministers in order to have the decisions
of the cabinet.”
This enables Mukherjee to even ask for details of deliberations by
the group of ministers. However, the Union cabinet had collectively
written to former President Zail Singh when he sought information on the
functioning of some ministries, particularly in relation to Bofors.
That had escalated the conflict.
There have been several other examples of such presidential intervention, which fall in the grey area.
In 1999, Narayanan summoned three service chiefs to discuss the
Kargil conflict in the absence of the defence minister. He also summoned
the CMD of Indian Airlines and sought a briefing on the financial
restructuring plan.
The President is not supposed to call civil servants, although a
minister can ask a bureaucrat to brief him on a particular issue.
In 2006, Kalam returned the office of profit bill and sought an
assurance from Manmohan Singh for review by a committee before giving
assent despite the reconsideration by the Cabinet.
In 2004, Kalam asked Atal Bihari Vajpayee to resign on the ground
that it would be wrong for the government to continue in office while
elections were being held. A firm Vajpayee, however, sent his law
minister to brief the President on the basics of the constitutional
scheme.
In 2005, Kalam asked Parliament to lay down a “comprehensive policy”
on mercy petitions and later also tried to alter the contours of the
Right to Information Act.
Kalam had also expressed the desire to address legislators regularly
on his development model and monitor schemes in districts through a web
network. But Vajpayee declined, telling him that a parallel governance
mechanism cannot be created.
Mukherjee is too mature to indulge in such acts. But there are
provisions that allow the President to send his opinion to Parliament in
times of peril, although no Prime Minister would like it.
The recent trend of Presidents meeting opposition delegations and
protesters to take memorandums can also be misused. Although the
President is not supposed to give them his opinion, he can seek the
Prime Minister’s or write to the Supreme Court for its opinion.
“What will happen if Mukherjee forwards a serious complaint against
any Congress leader for action?” asked a BJP leader, while explaining
the extent of the unfettered powers of the President.
The question is whether a conservative Mukherjee believes in the flawed concept of unfettered power.
- The Telegraph, Calcutta
copied from: http://darjeelingyouthclub.wordpress.com/pranab-likely-to-give-new-dimension-as-president/