Sonia Gandhi wrote that Pranab Mukherjee once hinted at wanting to be Prime Minister, which shocked her. She said she gently changed the subject. His daughter Sharmistha later asked on X, “What’s there to get ‘shocked’ about? Is it a crime to be ambitious?” Mukherjee served as President until 2017.
“I gently changed the subject, and though he may have been disappointed, he never made me feel he held it against me. Our party did nominate him in 2012 as the UPA candidate for president, the highest office in our republic, and he was elected. I often called on him, mostly just to converse with the erudite and knowledgeable politician that he always remained,” Gandhi added.
Pranab Mukherjee served as President from 2012 to 2017. He died in 2020. His years in Rashtrapati Bhavan saw the UPA being voted out of power and the NDA forming the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. President Mukherjee also shared a warm rapport with Prime Minister Modi, the latter describing him as a father figure and mentor.
Sonia Gandhi trashed allegations
Gandhi also trashed allegations that she sent for files from the Prime Minister’s Office, interfered with administrative matters, and made key appointments. “Though I had been the subject of worse accusations over the years, the fabrication that distressed me most was that I was looking into official – something improper for anyone outside the government,” she wrote.
She wrote that there was an “unspoken division of responsibility between the prime minister and me, one that worked smoothly: the government under Dr. Manmohan Singh, and the party under me”. “A core group met weekly with the prime minister to ensure coordination between the two. Its other members were Pranab Mukherjee, who had been a minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet in the ’70s; the politically insightful Arjun Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh; A. K. Antony, a former chief minister of Kerala; and Ahmed Patel,” she wrote.
Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter reacts
In a response on X, Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter and former Congress leader Sharmistha questioned if it is a “crime to be ambitious”. “What’s there to get ‘shocked’ about? Is it a crime to be ambitious, especially when that ‘ambition’ was supported by decades of experience in politics & governance, hard work & a brilliant mind? Once, when asked by me whether he wanted to become PM, he very candidly answered that ‘any politician worth his salt has this ambition,'” she said in her post.
“My father came from a very humble background. Whatever he achieved in his life was through sheer merit & hard-work. There was no-one to serve him positions, including PM-ship, on a platter due to dynastic entitlements. If a well-deserving person harbours ambition to become Prime Minister, what’s wrong in that, unless Sonia ji was ‘shocked’ by the fact that anyone outside Gandhi-Nehru family could even dare to nurture such an ambition & furthermore dared to ‘hint’ it to her?”
“In this same context, I read that she said she felt ‘he never held it against me’. From what I read in his diaries & whatever conversation he had with me, I would like to reassure her that he DID NOT hold it against her or anyone else. He was a pragmatic person with deep understanding. He understood her reasons & insecurities that all human beings are prone to,” she wrote.