PA Sangma – A liberal, articulate and candid politician

The death of PA Sangma, leader of National People's Party (NPP), who was earlier with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress party, on Friday at the age of 68, will be mourned by politicians across the political spectrum. He was a liberal and a nationalist, though not in the sense the terms are berated or understood these days. He was a different kind of politician -- articulate and candid. Many of his friends and critics might say that he took many wrong turns, and his judgements, which left him at many a dead-end, were not those of a seasoned politician.

He was a rising Congress leader throughout the 1980s, having made it to the Lok Sabha at the age of 30, and of having held the positions of a junior minister in the governments of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao. He was a trusted leader even after Sonia Gandhi took over as president of the party. Not many remember now that he headed the committee which considered ways of modernising the more-than-a-century-old party. One of the many recommendations he made was that it was time members and leaders sat across tables rather than the traditional mode of sitting cross-legged on mattresses, cushions and pillows.

He rose to national prominence as Speaker of Lok Sabha between 1996 and 1998, where he managed the House when no government was stable, and won plaudits from all quarters. But Sangma's career took a sharp turn when he objected to Sonia Gandhi leading the Congress because of her foreign birth. It is now known that among the three, Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar and Sangma, it was only Sangma who was sincere in his objection. He did not have any other difference with Sonia Gandhi.

Again, when he threw his hat in the ring for the 2012 presidential race against Congress nominee Pranab Mukherjee, it was no quirk of character. He did so in the belief that it was the obligation of a citizen and a politician to bid for the highest office in the country. He practised politics on the basis of norms. It was not clouded by ambition alone.

It was seeing his admirable role as Lok Sabha Speaker that many observers genuinely felt that here was a man most eligible to be the prime minister of India in terms of talent and temperament.