NEW DELHI: Pranab Mukherjee should have been given the reins of the UPA-II government and Manmohan Singh elevated to President when the office of Rashtrapati presented an opening in 2012, veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar says in his latest book.
The 83-year-old Aiyar states in the book that if this step had been taken, the UPA would not have gone into a “paralysis of governance”.
He says the decision to retain Manmohan Singh as the PM and shift Pranab Mukherjee to the Rashtrapati Bhawan “doomed” any prospects the Congress might have had to form UPA-III.