Aditya Sinha: Arun Jaitley for President

Arun Jaitley chairing a GST Council meeting in New Delhi yesterday His stint as Finance Minister has not been a rewarding one PicPTIMy advice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be to make Finance Minister Arun Jaitley the next President of India There are several reasons One whoever Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah select will be president because their side has the requisite votes Like the Americans we dont have direct voting state and central legislators are the voters each with proportional weightage This is particularly true after the recent win of threequarters of Uttar Pradeshs Assembly Also the parties ruling Tamil Nadu Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are sure to play ball with Modi Whoever the Opposition fields will be nothing more than a token candidate if it comes to thatTwo Modi and Shah want a president from their cohort Despite all the bluster about the 2019 election being in the bag both Modi and Shah know this chance may not pop up again in their lifetime Thus leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh RSS are also furiously confabulating on the presidency There is no chance that the names you may have heard during the past two years are in the mix be it Amitabh Bachchan Sharad Pawar or even Metro Man E Sreedharan It is wishful thinkingWhile consulting the Opposition the BJP recently told the Left parties that RSS members do not contest elections So RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is out Nonetheless Modi wants a similarly dedicated soldier of the Right in Rashtrapati Bhawan to smoothen his agenda of Constitutional change be it abolishing Article 370 which gives Jammu and Kashmir special status to renaming India Also ruled out however are senior BJP members despite their lifelong service to the parivar like LK Advani or Murli Manohar Joshi Senior ministers in Modis Cabinet could however be candidatesThese include Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Home Minister Rajnath Singh Gehlot belongs to a scheduled caste so he would logically be a shooin considering how the BJPs success in UP rested on fragmenting and coopting a chunk of the SC vote Rajnath Singh has always been perceived as being overly ambitious and famously got an earful over his sons perceived nepotism Sushma has been an Advani loyalist and despite having a hefty portfolio her work is cannibalised by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval she is reduced to rescuing Indian citizens tweeting from around the globeMy bet is on Jaitley He has forever been part of the parivar He began politics in the 1970s with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ABVP as a law student at Delhi University he was jailed during the Emergency he and senior journalist Prabhu Chawla were then pals He is perhaps the most acceptable face of the BJP for the Opposition even Sushma reminds Congress chief Sonia Gandhi of past slights and electoral battles He has deep contacts in the media evidence the recent controversy around a major newspapers executive editor who interfaced with Jaitley to fix bureaucratic postings Jaitley is also a friend of the proprietor of a proCongress Delhibased newspaperBy the same token however Jaitleys popularity within his own party is not 100 per cent He was a rare loser in the 2014 Modi wave He is perhaps the only BJP leader who would make the rankandfile crossvote in a presidential pollJaitley is reportedly keen to leave government As Jaitleys predecessor in North Block P Chidambaram pointed out recently being finance minister is an 18hour job and being defence minister is an 18hour job but the day has only 24 hours Also the finance stint has not been a rewarding one Demonetisation as Modis own supporters now concede was not a success recent agrarian unrest is attributed to it The Goods and Services Tax was supposed to simplify taxation but is already the worlds most complicated GST His budgets will never be considered in the same stratosphere as Manmohan Singhs 1991 Budget or Chidambarams 1997 Budget Modi might have got rid of former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan but the world blames Jaitley for it In short not a glorious tenureAt 64 Jaitley is a young politician with an old body he had heart surgery in 2005 and bariatric surgery in 2014 Like another of his predecessors and current incumbent Pranab Mukherjee Jaitley may like to seize the opportunity to write his political careers historic final chapter His chances are not dim Despite being an Advani acolyte for over two decades Jaitley promptly jumped ship to Modis side when the former Gujarat Chief Minister in 2013 started moving decisively to take control of the party Such loyalty rarely goes unrewarded And a President Jaitley could use his legal experience to justify whatever he does if 2019 should throw up a hung Parliament Modi never had an easier choiceAditya Sinhas crime novel The CEO Who Lost His Head is available now He tweets autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom