PRANAB MUKHERJEE, A TOWERING PERSONALITY: A DAUGHTER REMEMBERS

The following are extracts from Sharmistha Mukherjee’s book on her father, the late Pranab Mukherjee. The extracts highlight the late President of India’s interactions with Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi.

- SHARMISTHA MUKHERJEE

One of the early references in his (Pranab Mukherjee’s) diaries about Rahul was on 29 January 2009, in the context of a CWC meeting that had discussions on strategies for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as one of the agendas. Pranab wrote, ‘Rahul Gandhi spoke vehemently against coalition. I told him [that] he should elaborate his ideas and it should be logically put. He said that he’ll discuss with me.’

After that, there are few references in his diaries of Rahul visiting him at his residence. Pranab described him as ‘very courteous’ and ‘full of questions’, which he took as a sign of Rahul’s desire to learn. But he felt that Rahul was ‘yet to mature politically’. Rahul continued to meet Pranab at Rashtrapati Bhavan, though not very frequently. Pranab advised him to join the Cabinet and gain some first-hand experience in governance. Rahul obviously did not heed the advice, as we all know. During one of these visits on 25 March 2013, Pranab noted, ‘He has interest in diverse range of subjects but moves very quickly from one subject to another. I don’t know how much he listened and absorbed.’ On 15 July 2013, Rahul came for lunch. As per Pranab’s diary, Rahul spelt out in detail his plans for revamping the organization. Though Pranab did not write anything about those plans, he was appreciative and noted that Rahul ‘appeared confident of meeting the challenges’. But had Pranab known what Rahul was about to do two months later (perhaps, Rahul himself didn’t know it then), he would have very strongly advised Rahul against it.

On 27 September 2013, Rahul Gandhi walked into a press conference held by former Cabinet minister and the party’s Communication Department Chief Ajay Maken and vehemently trashed a proposed government ordinance calling it complete nonsense, adding that it should be torn up…