Pranab Mukherjee saw Rahul Gandhi's ordinance-tearing act as last nail in Congress's coffin, says book by his daughter

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, December 7

Late president Pranab Mukherjee saw Rahul Gandhi’s ordinance-tearing act on September 27, 2013, as the final nail in the Congress’s coffin on the eve of the 2014 general election, reveals a new book set for December 11 release.

‘Pranab, My Father’, a Rupa publication by the late leader’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee, also notes how Pranab voiced disappointment at Rahul Gandhi’s frequent disappearing acts.

The book records an incident where Rahul was given an evening appointment to meet Pranab Mukherjee, then President, but he turned up in the morning when the latter was taking his morning walk.

“It turned out that Rahul was scheduled to meet Mukherjee later in the evening but his office mistakenly informed him that the meeting was in the morning…When I asked my father he commented — if Rahul’s office cannot differentiate between am and pm how do they hope to run the PMO one day?,” Sharmishtha records in the book which also quotes Pranab as saying that Rahul has all the arrogance of the Gandhi-Nehru lineage “without their political acumen”.

To the author, the 13th President of India was Baba, a workaholic; a history teacher, a devoutly religious man who never imposed his faith on his daughter. 

In the book, Sharmistha reveals her family’s private world that was populated by the Gandhis—Indira, Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul; Prime Ministers PV Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee,  Manmohan Singh and, more recently, Narendra Modi.

“PM Modi would always touch Baba’s feet,” she says, uncovering new, hitherto unknown facts about Pranab’s political life.

In author’s own words, the book speaks of Pranab Mukerjee’s unfulfilled ambition to be India’s prime minister due to the inability to emerge as the ‘number one person’ to earn Sonia’s trust, the personality cult around the Nehru-Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi’s lack of political understanding, Mamata Banerjee’s opposition to Pranab’s nomination as the presidential candidate (which sealed the deal in his favour) and his advice to PM Modi to acknowledge the contributions of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.