Pranab Mukherjee and the Future of Indian Politics

But Pranab's appeal runs deeper. He is a kindred spirit to fellow mates of the Indian political system, a member of a well-defined brotherhood. They would rather support him than a P A Sangma or an outsider like Vice President Hamid Ansari.

So, what does the future hold? The last round of assembly elections has thrown up a twofold probability. The negotiators of the future will not be the two contending alliances, the UPA and the NDA, but could be the increasingly powerful regional leaders from Tamil Nadu to Punjab to West Bengal. They could run the show for some time after 2014 by building new alliances and since, in terms of political culture, most of them are so familiar with Mukherjee.

During his first stint as finance minister, in the early 80s, Mukherjee was happy to go along with Indira Gandhi's decision not to draw the last share of the large historic International Monetary Fund loan that was taken to help open up the Indian economy. Rising output from Bombay High and escalating remittances from the Gulf after the oil price rises of the seventies enabled India to forego a part of the IMF loan.