Pranab Da’s bonhomie with Modi revealed in memoir | Economic Times

New Delhi: Just six months into power as the Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi got a surprise ‘birthday gift’ from then President, the late Pranab Mukherjee. On a presidential trip to Vietnam while speaking before the Indian diaspora, Mukherjee praised the Modi government for chartering new credible economic policies leading to growth in the GDP, containing inflation and positive signs like a larger foreign direct investment.This vote of confidence by a veteran Congressman, who had been a bitter critic of BJP in his long political career, was not lost on Modi who returned the favour in equal measure three years later. In 2017, at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, Modi said Mukherjee had helped him in settling in Delhi in his new role as PM. “Pranab Da ki ungli pakadake Delhi ki zindagi mein apne aap ko set karne me bahut badi suvidha mili (I was fortunate to get Pranab Mukherjee’s guidance to be able to settle in Delhi),” Modi said, saying Mukherjee had acted “like a father figure” by also advising him to take care of his heath amidst his hectic work schedule.More than a glimpse of that six-year-long bonhomie between Modi and Mukherjee can be seen in the latter’s memoir, ‘The Presidential Years, 2012-2017’, released this week, four months after his death.Mukherjee’s respect for the decisive mandate that Modi got to become the prime minister is amply clear in the book where he said Modi had “earned and achieved the prime ministership” compared to Manmohan Singh who “was essentially an economist” and was chosen for the job by Sonia Gandhi. People, by choosing Modi with a simple majority, indicated their preference for political stability and hoped for a development-oriented politics, Mukherjee observed.The former president was also impressed with Modi’s planning and hard work before the 2014 elections, though he said he was not sure of the massive mandate that BJP ultimately got. He, however, took the claims of Piyush Goyal of BJP getting 265-280 seats seriously when the latter provided him with Modi’s detailed electioneering schedule, “which was not only gruelling but also painstaking”, Mukherjee wrote. Talking about his advice to the people in his Republic Day Address in 2014 for a decisive mandate in the general elections that followed, the former president remarked in his book: “Of course, people may say that the voters responded to my advice and gave a conclusive mandate in favour of PM Modi to form a government on his own.”Mukherjee, himself a former foreign minister, also observed that though foreign policy was an uncharted territory for Modi when he took over as the PM, he managed to grasp the nuances of foreign policy quickly, citing his invite to the heads of Saarc nations, including then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, to his oath-taking ceremony. “He did what no PM had attempted before…his out-of-the-box initiative took several foreign policy veterans by surprise,” Mukherjee wrote, adding that he welcomed the idea when Modi informed him of his decision. He, however, was critical of Modi’s surprise visit to Pakistan later on Sharif’s birthday.“Former President Pranab Mukherjee, in his new book has touched upon his relationship with PM Narendra Modi in glowingly warm terms. A big part of this success goes to the political maturity of both the leaders, their commitment to the Constitution, and the mutual respect that these two stalwarts had for each other,” an official at the Prime Minister’s Office told ET. “It was one of the smoothest relationships between the President and the Prime Minister in modern India despite difficult circumstances and different party affiliations.” Mukherjee himself noted in his book that Modi maintained the constitutional traditions of keeping the President informed and seeking his advice. Modi also initiated a practice of giving the President a detailed briefing for presidential foreign tours, Mukherjee wrote.The equation between the two men had a crucial bridge in the late Arun Jaitley. Mukherjee had said that whenever there had been issues of divergence between him and Modi, Jaitley played the mediator. In a note in 2017, Jaitley wrote that he was usually sent by the PM to interact with the President when the latter needed to be satisfied with some decisions. “I don’t know how many times I have given him (Jaitley) trouble…of calling him and consulting – why this, and why not this? But finally, he (Jaitley) convinced me and I had to concede to his reasoning,” Mukherjee said in 2017. Jaitley responded: “He owned up programmes of the government and became their advocate.”