READ THIS AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF : A very good friend of mine in FB who is a distinguished person and who has served in the Army and who is known for his wit such that he could be easily titled as a Doctorate in Humourology mentioned one comment to one of my replies and that is " The BJP would win but Modi may not be the Prime Minister" I replied back saying that the mandate to the BJP would be only on account of two factors , first is the hatred and despise for the UPA which people have developed and secondly the Modi wave and the people’s desire that he should be the future Prime Minister of India would turn into votes for them. He was kind enough to put a like to my reply. But as usual my mind did not stop with that, I was thinking about his comment post lunch and my Saturday afternoon siesta went for a toss. Now what my distinguished friend wrote cannot be discounted altogether. Modi is not the leader of the BJP and if the BJP wins the highest no of seats as the single largest party, the President would have to go by convention and call them first and give them an opportunity to form the government, Now it would be Rajnath who would be invited as he is the President of the BJP and the President can tell him that you can form your Government and prove your majority. And if Rajnath says that Modi would be the BJP’s candidate for the Prime Ministership, the President can say, anyone except Modi. Now the President can say this as it is not mandatory or constitutional for him to accept what Rajnath proposes, these things go by convention. Rajnath under such a scenario cannot argue on any grounds and neither is the President bound by his arguments. This may be the worst scenario which can emerge in Indian democracy, now I would have to tell you about conventions, the British Monarch invites the person who is the leader and whose party has won the largest no of seats to form the government, again it is convention, there is nothing to prevent the British Monarch to call anyone from the same party and ask him or her to form the Government, it is the Monarch’s prerogative and as we know the British Constitution is a unwritten one and one cannot sue the Monarch in common law or otherwise as she is above law, similarly the President of India cannot be questioned or challenged on if he does not agree to the choice of Modi. Normally heads of state in a democracy do not do it, but never discount this possibility. In 1984 when Indira Gandhi was shot , Rajiv Gandhi was on a flight from Calcutta to Delhi, the coded message if an assassination attempt is made on her and if it is unsuccessful was “Thwarted” and if the assassination attempt causes terrible injury to the PM the code was “ Work in Progress” and if the assassination is successful the code was “ Worst fears Confirmed”. Rajiv was accompanied by Pranab who was the Finance Minister in her cabinet then and yet one more person , the first message was “Work in Progress” , and about thirty minutes later came the message “ Worst Fears Confirmed”. Pranab asked Rajiv later in mid air “ Does it mean that I am the next Prime Minister of India ????”. The same afternoon Zail Singh the then President of India, who was away to Mauritius returned back after hearing about the tragedy and administered the oath of office to Rajiv immediately. Pranab was expelled from the congress for 6 years, it is because Rajiv felt that he was ambitious. Later on after Rajiv’s assassination he was called back into the party. I have always been vary of Pranab Mukherjee though I may respect him to be the President of India, no wonder they made him the President now, never to nurture any Political ambitions or step into active politics again in his lifetime after retirement
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 13:49:54 +0000