India's former premier Pranab Mukherjee has reported the cover of the current number of the country's influential English weekly India Today. There he had a long interview with the editorial editor of the editor Raj Chengappa. Particular part of the interview was translated and translated.
Question: why the defeat of the Congress in the 2014 elections? The group got the lowest seats in their history.
Pranab Mukherjee: We were the first UPA government to handle. We had 147. There were more than one team in our alliance. The Left was socialist. They supported us from outside. It was running very well. But in the second phase, the UPA government's alliance could not do well.
Question: why did the UPA government do the second good?
Pranab Mukherjee: One of the reasons, Congress thought that they got 200 seats and 280 seats were the same thing. As a result, mentality of acceptance of others has decreased. Another reason, Mamata Banerjee, one of the allies of the alliance government, left the coalition in 2012. Working with Mamta is very difficult. Mamta had 19 seats in the Lok Sabha. He was a great associate. I have had a lot of conflict with him. But I did that. I became the President in July and Mamata left the alliance in October. The first UPA government took a lot of complex decisions. But how did you know that speed was not in the second phase. We might have been tired.
Q: Do you think the Congress is going to lose in that election?
Pranab Mukherjee: When the election campaign is in the final stage, a number of important Congress leaders meet with me. They were mostly ministers. I kept notes of what they used to say. Most of these leaders used to say that Congress would get 160 to 170 seats. BJP gets 180 Surprisingly, only Piyush Goyal told me that BJP will not get seats under 260. And he almost said exactly.
Q: How was Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh's guess about the 2014 elections?
Pranab Mukherjee: The number of seats will be given to the party, the two did not tell me anything. But they said that the situation is very complicated. Sonia Gandhi is completely different from other Indian politicians. He never said exaggerated things. Second, he never gives false promises to anyone. If he does not know anything, he will say, I do not know. I have to look for a look. Such accuracy is a feature of his character.
Q: How would you explain your relationship with Sonia?
Pranab Mukherjee: At the very beginning he was not very positive about me. But after the Vajpayee government came to power, the situation started to change. After the team conference in 1998, his attitude changed. From then on he began to trust me.
Question: Had you been the Prime Minister, could you become a better Prime Minister?
Pranab Mukherjee: How can I say this? The matter is that you missed a train, which did not come at the station. She is not the Prime Minister. I am sure, the people of the country must have accepted him as a Prime Minister. In 2004, the people voted for him. Sonia was competent. But competence does not always prove that you will be a good leader. You can be a good leader, you can be a good player; But you can be a good captain, not that. But Sonia had the ability to become a better captain.
Defense: Have you been disappointed with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister?
Pranab Mukherjee: No. I feel unworthy of being the Prime Minister of India for three reasons. The first incompetence is that, I was a member of Rajya Sabha most of my political life. In 2004 only I was elected a member of the Lok Sabha. The second disqualification was that I could not speak Hindi even though I was elected in the Lok Sabha. And if you do not know Hindi, nobody can show the courage to become India's Prime Minister. Kamaraj would say, 'No Hindi no Prime Minister'. And my third incompetence is that, since West Bengal, I have been representing since 1977, Congress could not come to power. They have their state behind every Prime Minister.
Q: It is heard that Rahul Gandhi is the president of the Congress. What is your opinion
Pranab Mukherjee: He is coming out. Rahul is doing hard work. The leaders and workers of Congress should correct their leaders. They are fair enough. This group is 132 years old.
Q: Do you not think this legacy politics is not good for modern democracy?
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