In 2012, when Pranab Mukherjee became President, the Congress, the party to which he had belonged to for most of his political career, headed the United Progressive Alliance government. Now, as he demits office, it is after three years of a dispensation headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with which he had crossed swords on many occasions on the floor of Parliament.
Yet, as only the fifth of 13 incumbents who came to Rashtrapati Bhavan after a long and successful political innings, Mr Mukherjee has been a copybook President, neither succumbing to becoming a rubberstamp, nor aspiring to becoming a “people’s President” as APJ Abdul Kalam had before him.
Instead, as this most pragmatic of Presidents worked within the four walls of the Constitution, he took Rashtrapati Bhawan to the people: he opened up to visitors disused parts of Rashtrapati Bhawan that he had restored and newly created museums in which treasures from the toshakhana were displayed. He also got 13 books written about the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
As someone who deeply believed in the value of education, in his capacity of Visitor to several universities, he emphasised the need to inculcate the spirit of inquiry and promote research.
Not surprisingly, no controversies marred his stint as First Citizen, as he engaged with the government and the opposition alike.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently praised Mr Mukherjee publicly for “holding his hand” as he settled down in Delhi, and stressed that there was never a meeting between them in the last three years when the President had not treated him like a son. Mr Mukherjee, too, on that occasion, said that though there was a divergence of views between the two men, they kept that to themselves and acted in close cooperation: “It did not affect the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister, between the titular head and the actual head of the administration.”
It was not that he always accepted what the government had to say: when the Modi regime went on an Ordinance spree, he summoned the ministers concerned to seek an explanation, thereby making his displeasure known, even though he eventually signed them. He also spoke out publicly against rising intolerance and mob lynching that is continuing unabated.
As far as the Opposition is concerned, senior Congress leaders such as Ahmed Patel, occasionally Sonia Gandhi, and on a few occasions, Rahul Gandhi, among would call on the President to consult him on legislation, such as the Land Acquisition Law. Publicly, much to their chagrin, he backed demonetisation and denounced disruption of Parliament; he also did not reject the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh, realistic about the reality of the Constitutional scheme and the limits of being a titular head.
When he assumed office, there was a pile of pending mercy pleas left over from the tenures of his two squeamish predecessors, Mr Kalam and Ms Pratibha Patil. But his successor will begin with a clean slate as Mr Mukherjee, while accepting four of these pleas, rejected 30 others: they included those from Yakub Memon, Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru.
Now as the First Citizen goes back to being an ordinary citizen, it is hard to believe that he will slip into oblivion: beleaguered Congressmen, for one, will continue to flock to him for advice and solace.
