From ‘trust deficit’ with Gandhi family to Rahul’s arrogance: Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter remembers her father

She was in conversation with former Rajya Sabha member Pavan Varma at the launch of her book, Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers (Rs 795, Rupa), about her father’s political career, personal relationships and interactions with leaders.

The book originated with the former president giving his “meticulous diaries” to Sharmistha, the earliest from 1972, before he assumed the post, instructing her to not open them during his tenure. “When I first started reading them after his death, it was very emotional for me. I thought I was intruding on his space. I have chronicled his journey from a humble rural mud-house in Bengal to the grandest residence in India,” Sharmistha said.

Pawan Verma and Sharmishta Mukherjee during launch of her book Pranab My Father A daughter Remembers. (Express photo by Anil Sharma)

She added his reason for requesting their posthumous publication was that, while he was in Congress, giving “frank opinions” was difficult as “one has to abide by a certain discipline”, and he “knew they’d create a stir.”

The book discusses Indira Gandhi’s early recognition of, in Varma’s words, the “relatively unknown Congressman” who went on to head many cabinet portfolios at different times and stand by Gandhi during the Emergency, while she was, according to Sharmistha, “marginalised in her own party.”

Later, he wrote in his diaries, said Varma, that “perhaps his blind loyalties also made him blind to the aberrations she brought into the system, including a personality cult, an authoritarian milieu within the Congress, and the subversion of institutions.”

The book narrates how he was dropped from Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet after his mother’s assassination, later from the Congress Working Committee, and eventually, the party for seven years. Sharmistha said, “(It) made him very depressed. He was without any work, having no political future, and was really hurt.”

The book also discusses his return to the party, and how a “trust deficit” remained with the present Congress leadership. “He had a very assertive personality and a mind of his own… He told me that (he felt) Sonia ji was safeguarding her interests and… she thought he might have challenged her authority,” Sharmistha said.

Sharmistha said Pranab Mukherjee thought Rahul Gandhi had “all the arrogance of his Gandhi-Nehru lineage without their political acumen.”

BJP leader Vijay Goel,Pawan Verma and Sharmishta Mukherjee. (Express photo by Anil Sharma)

The book includes an anecdote narrated to Mukherjee by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when the BJP had just won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and he had met the President. “(My father) had said that they’re from two different ideologies, but people had given (Modi) the mandate,” she recounted.

She also recalled her opposition to his attendance at a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh event in Nagpur in 2017, to which he had said, “Who am I to give legitimacy to the RSS? The people of India give the RSS its legitimacy.”