During my own presidency, I had the opportunity to work with two PMs – Dr [Manmohan] Singh (from 25 July 2012 to 26 May 2014), almost two y...
During my own presidency, I had the opportunity to work with two PMs – Dr [Manmohan] Singh (from 25 July 2012 to 26 May 2014), almost two years in the first half of my five-year tenure; and then, from 26 May till the day of my retirement from the office on 25 July 2017, I had Narendra Modi as my PM, for a little more than three years.
The route to prime ministership for the two PMs I worked with was very different. Dr Singh was offered the post by Sonia Gandhi; she had been chosen as the prime ministerial candidate by the Congress Parliamentary Party and other constituents of the UPA, but she declined the offer. The issue of her foreign origin was being heatedly debated in the public domain, and she did not want to create a controversy as a result of the division that had been created out of the matter.
Senior leaders such as Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar had in 1999 insisted that the Congress name an Indian by birth as its prime ministerial candidate and not someone like Sonia Gandhi, who was of foreign origin and had become the party chief. They were expelled...
