New Delhi
\nCongress veteran Pranab Mukherjee created a flutter in political and social media circles today with his near endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s leadership on the latter\u2019s 68th birthday. \u201cI extend my warm wishes to Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi on his Birthday (sic). May you be blessed with a long, healthy & happy life and continue to serve the nation for many more years to come. #CitizenMukherjee,\u201d former President wrote on his Twitter timeline, triggering a trail of both bouquets and brickbats.<\/p>\n
Mukherjee\u2019s politically nuanced message on the PM\u2019s birthday took the Congress by surprise, with the party refraining from any official comment on what the former President had to say.
\nAll a senior Congress leader mentioned when asked if any party leader was attending the RSS event in the capital today was: \u201cI can speak for myself. I don\u2019t intend to follow in the footsteps of Pranab Mukherjee.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jibe was for Mukherjee\u2019s previous move of addressing a Sangh gathering at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur some time back.<\/p>\n
Congress leaders privately acknowledged the significance of Mukherjee\u2019s \u201cmay you serve the nation for many more years\u201d wish for Modi on the eve of 2019 General Election preceded by Assembly polls in four states. The former President\u2019s message followed a previous birthday greeting for the PM by Congress president Rahul Gandhi who wrote, \u201cHappy birthday to our PM Narendra Modi ji! Wishing him good health and happiness always.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social media circles remained abuzz after Mukherjee\u2019s birthday wishes for Modi, with some people complimenting the former President for \u201cendorsing Modi as the next PM\u201d, and some simply targeting him saying \u201che is angry with the Congress\u201d. \u201cPranab\u2019s is not happy with Congress leadership\u2026openly endorsing second term to Narendra Modi,\u201d said one troll.<\/p>\n
Another message read: \u201cWhat does this indicate? Pranabda has more faith in Modiji to lead the nation for the next 10-15 years and make India greatest in the comity of nations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi Congress veteran Pranab Mukherjee created a flutter in political and social media circles today with his near endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s leadership on the latter\u2019s 68th birthday. \u201cI extend my warm wishes to Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi on his Birthday (sic). May you be blessed with a long, healthy & happy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42414,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42412\/revisions\/42414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}