Khurshid: If Pranab was PM, Congress might have averted 2014 Lok Sabha loss

NEW DELHI: Former union minister and senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid has revived the debate in the Congress over who would have been a better choice as the Prime Minister when the UPA came to power in 2004, saying Manmohan Singh’s selection over Pranab Mukherjee surprised all.

“Singh’s selection over Mukherjee in 2004 to head the UPA government came as a surprise not only to the Congress but also to outsiders and many argue the party might have averted the 2014 Lok Sabha drubbing if the choice had been otherwise,” he wrote in his new book “The Other Side of the Mountain”.

However, Khurshid said that after some initial reluctance, not only was Sonia Gandhi’s decision to choose him to lead the UPA-I widely welcomed but “also proved correct” by the electoral verdict five years later, when the Congress-led coalition returned to power with a greater majority.

“It’s always easy to be wise after the worst has happened. We must not forget the whole nation had applauded Dr Manmohan Singh as the gamechanger finance minister during the Narasimha Rao regime (June 1991 to May 1996). But when Dr Singh contested the 1999 Lok Sabha polls from what was thought to be the safest seat in the country for him, South Delhi, he was defeated by a candidate whose name many would scarce recall (It was Professor Vijay Kumar Malhotra of the BJP),” he says.