To cynically ignore repeated exhortations from someone holding high moral authority is to insult: as if the pleas lacked relevance. When it becomes deliberate policy to overlook such appeals an element of cowardice is added.

The calculated “silent treatment” leaders of the government have been extending to the President erodes the impression of strength they strive to project. Count is fast being lost of the recent occasions on which Pranab Mukherjee has flayed the closed mindsets of those now wielding power: In his initial days as Prime Minister Narendra Modi did acknowledge some of Mukherjee’s concerns, but the BJP’s electoral successes seem to have deafened the party’s leaders.

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Yet none of them have dared display the moral fibre to indicate to the President that his calls for tolerance, inclusiveness, and open violence-free debate, etc., find no place in the game-plan that found unquestionable favour with the people in UP and Uttarakhand recently: other “skills” came into play when forming the governments in Manipur and Goa.

The President was clearly not unaware of the limited impact his words were having on the “national leadership” when he addressed the convocation at the IIM-Calcutta, going beyond his prepared text to declare “I have departed from the written text of my speech and I apologise for it. But being a fellow Calcuttan and being a son of the soil, I thought I should frankly express some of my views as I speak from my heart. If I have touched anyone’s sentiment I apologise for it.” And he struck a chord ~ nay, sprinkled salt on the wounds ~ when yet again he cited Amartya Sen to indicate a preference for the argumentative over the intolerant.

Mukherjee’s presidency is drawing to a close and there are no indications of a possibility of him being invited to seek re-election ~ not that he has sought this. Whoever succeeds him could play a decisive part in charting the nation’s future course.

The “pocket-calculator pundits” insist it will be no cake-walk for the BJP’s choice, but that would be to underestimate the manipulative capabilities of the Modi-Shah combine. The Opposition’s forging a united front might be the last chance (in the immediate future) of resisting the saffron onslaught.

Yet bringing the Opposition on to a common platform would call for inspiring leadership ~ of which there is little evidence, even though the clock in Rashtrapati Bhawan has begun its countdown. Rahul’s survival-bid to ride piggy-back on Akhilesh ended in disaster.

A few months back Mamata Banerjee had led an anti-demonetisation march to the “presidential palace” ~ even those who cursed, and continue to curse the action on November 8 broke ranks before the procession approached the Jaipur Column.