Congress party Pranab Mukherjee’s victory in the Indian presidential election this week allowed the party to exhale for a nanosecond amid the gloom of stalled economic reform and political paralysis. As the country watched the pomp and pageantry of the presidential swearing-in today, the tectonic plates of power in India started to shift again.
The Indian National Congress Party, the ruling coalition UPA’s majority stakeholder, has managed to rewind to 15 years ago. When Sonia Gandhi took on the presidency of the near-dead party in 1998, it resuscitated and took power; first in 2004, then 2009. It is now withering. Perhaps if Congress were not so weak, shrewd tactician Mukherjee would not have had the opportunity to take the presidency. It’s said that Sonia Gandhi doesn’t fully trust him, not since he was reported to have argued that he was the best person to succeed her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi when she was assassinated in 1984, rather than Indira’s son and Sonia’s husband, Rajiv Gandhi.
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