With the Congress High Command appointing Rita Bahuguna Joshi as the Uttar Pradesh Congress President, her detractors have dug out her book on her father, former UP Chief Minister Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna. Referring to her father’s differences with Indira Gandhi before the Emergency, Joshi had said in the book that Indira Gandhi had demolished the credibility of democratic institutions systematically and put her self-interest above the party’s or the country’s. Joshi had called Indira an “autocrat and dictatorial” in the book. There were also objectionable references to Rajiv Gandhi in the book. While Joshi’s detractors are showing the book to anybody who cares at the AICC headquarters, her supporters claimed the book was published in 1999 when she was not a part of the Congress.
