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President Mukherjee: What impact on Indo-Bangladesh ties?

Since President Mukherjee has been closely associated with the affairs of Bangladesh as finance/external affairs minister for a long period, he is expected to use his power of persuasion on the Indian government in continuing mutually supportive relations with Bangladesh in the years ahead.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid
PRANAB Kumar Mukherjee, 76-year veteran politician and former finance minister was officially sworn in on July 25 by the Chief Justice of India, S.H. Kapadia as the 13th president of India. He is the first Bengali to adorn the highest post of the Republic of India since its inception.
After the ceremony, President
Mukherjee addressed lawmakers and underscored the need for erasing poverty from the "dictionary of modern India" and striving for equality for all (India has at least 300 million ultra poor people while the number of billionaires is increasing).
Mukherjee also touched on corruption, a thorny issue that has dogged the Congress-led government that he served in as minister. "Corruption is an evil that can depress a nation's mood and sap its progress," he said. "We cannot allow our progress to be hijacked by corruption."
India follows the parliamentary system of government. The office of president is therefore largely ceremonial and nonpartisan and has a tenure of five years. The actual powers of governance rest with the prime minister and cabinet.
Still, the president can play a critical role in times of political crisis. If no one party secures a clear majority in general elections, the president can decide which party should try to secure the support of enough smaller parties to form a government.
Political analyst Sanjay Kumar at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, a New Delhi-based think tank, says President Mukherjee could "play a decisive role" in determining who forms the next government, with national elections due in 2014 and no party expected to secure a clear mandate.
Pranab Mukherjee joined politics after being a college teacher, a journalist and a lawyer. He followed his father's footsteps in joining the Congress Party and was elected to the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Parliament) in 1969 before moving to the Lok Sabha (Lower House) in 2004. Many who joined then had left the Congress Party' but he remained loyal to the Party headed by Indira Gandhi. He is believed to be very close to Sonia Gandhi.
His ministerial career began in 1973 as the deputy minister of industrial development. After that, he hardly looked back. He held a string of influential portfolios in the government including commerce, finance, defense and external affairs. He was regarded as the Congress Party's chief political fixer, who has spent years holding the party's fragile coalition together.
He has been an ardent supporter of friendly relations with Bangladesh. This was demonstrated when I, as a Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata, invited him in 1980 to open Bangladesh Book Exhibition and he, as a central commerce minister, readily agreed to do so and as a result our Exhibition received wide coverage in the media.
He played a crucial role in cementing Indo-Bangladesh relations as a "troubleshooter." Whenever there was any need to smoothen the rough edges in bilateral relations, New Delhi sent Mukherjee to Bangladesh.
Pranab Mukherjee visited Bangladesh several times. His visit to Bangladesh as external affairs minister in 2009 was called a "goodwill" one because the general election in India was to be held in April of that year. The visit was significant as the Indian senior minister met the Bangladesh prime minister and other ministers of the newly elected Awami League-led government.
Mukherjee visited again Bangladesh in August 2010 as the finance minister to witness the signing of the $1 billion loan agreement to Bangladesh for 14 projects related to infrastructure, river dredging and power transmission from India. At the signing ceremony, Mukherjee reportedly said: "The credit is the largest ever amount given by India to any country... I am confident that this credit line will be the stepping stone for a shared destiny and will transform our bilateral engagement."
Analysts say the real purpose of Muhkerjee’s visit in 2010 was to calm down the anxiety within the Bangladesh government leaders about the painfully slow implementation of priority issues.
Although his last visit to Bangladesh was in May of this year to attend the concluding session of Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary celebration, he announced that India would write-off $200 million dollars of the one billion loaned to Bangladesh for various projects.
Since President Mukherjee has been closely associated with the affairs of Bangladesh as finance/external affairs minister for a long period, he is expected to use his power of persuasion on the Indian government in continuing mutually supportive relations with Bangladesh in the years ahead.
Although Pranab Mukherjee would go down in history as the first Bengali to be the president, there is a view among Bengalis that he missed the most coveted position of prime minister of India after having served the Congress Party loyally for the last 43 years.
The president and the prime minister of Bangladesh congratulated President Muhkherjee and the people of Bangladesh heartily extend greetings to him and wish him well in the great journeys of his life.
The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.