Once a close confidant of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, late former President and Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee told his daughter Sharmishtha that he believed Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the only PM after Indira who has the ability to feel the pulse of the people “so acutely and accurately”.
Sharmishtha Mukherjee’s conversations with her father have been narrated in her soon-to-be-released book ‘Pranab, My Father: A daughter Remembers’, and weave in several anecdotal references from his diaries. The narrations include her conversations with the former President on wanting to be PM (and what came in the way), his view of Rahul Gandhi, and his reaction to the Congress first family giving the ceremony where he was conferred the Bharat Ratna, a miss.
She also recounted that though her father was keen to be Prime Minister, he believed Congress leader Sonia Gandhi thought he would “challenge” her authority and “safeguarded” her own family’s interest by paving the way for Manmohan Singh to hold the post in 2004.
Pranab Mukherjee, who served as India’s 13th President from 2012 to 2017, also told his daughter that the entire Congress leadership and the party’s allies had been left stunned by Sonia’s decision to renounce the PM’s post after UPA won a majority in 2002.