Politics was not Rahul’s calling, Pranab Mukherjee felt: Daughter
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New Delhi: The Congress veteran Pranab Mukerjee thought that Rahul Gandhi had “yet to mature politically” and believed “may be politics wasn’t his calling”, says a new book by his daughter.
Sharmistha Mukherjee in her book ‘Pranab, My Father – A Daughter Remembers’ captured the former President’s feelings and reactions towards some of the key incidents that shaped up politics in the years to come.
The book, which is to be released next week, is as much based on the Congress leader’s diary entries as Sharmistha’s conversations with him, The Indian Express reported.
The former President concluded that Rahul Gandhi was ‘very courteous’ but he was ‘yet to mature politically’, Sharmistha noted.
Mukherjee derived this opinion on Rahul Gandhi after he had torn up and thrown away a proposed government ordinance in September 2013 when the Congress-led government was in power.
Calling it ‘complete nonsense’, Rahul Gandhi trashed the proposed ordinance meant to overturn the Supreme Court ruling that favoured immediate disqualification of a legislator convicted in a criminal offence.
Mukharjee reportedly responding to the incident saying “final nail in the coffin” for Congress prospects in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Sharmistha recalls her father as saying that he himself was against the ordinance but he was aghast at Rahul Gandhi’s act that day.
‘Who does he (Rahul) think he is? He is not a member of the Cabinet. Who is he to publicly trash a decision of Cabinet? The Prime Minister is abroad…What right does he have to humiliate the PM like this?’ Sharmistha recalled her father as saying.
More important, Mukherjee believed that politics was an “a 24×7, 365-day job” and was disappointed by Rahal Gandhi’s ‘frequent disappearing acts’, which the president believed causing Rahul to ‘lose the perception battle’.
The book has details about the rapport between Pranab Mukherjee and PM Modi in whom the president found Indira Gandhi’s ‘ability to feel the pulse of the people so acutely and accurately’.