New Delhi, Dec 7:
Pranab Mukherjee was aghast at Rahul Gandhi’s ordinance-tearing act in 2013 and said he has all the “arrogance” of his Gandhi-Nehru lineage without their political acumen and that this episode was the “final nail in the coffin” for the Congress in the Lok Sabha polls the subsequent year, a book on the late president says.
“In Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers”, Sharmistha Mukherjee says that her father also told her that “maybe politics wasn’t Rahul’s calling” and his “lack of charisma and political understanding is creating a problem” besides his “frequent disappearing acts”.
On September 27, 2013, Rahul walked into a press conference held by former Cabinet Minister and the party’s communication department chief Ajay Maken and vehemently trashed a proposed Government Ordinance calling it “complete nonsense”, adding that it should be torn. Then taking everyone by surprise, he tore a copy of the Ordinance.
The Ordinance aimed to bypass a Supreme Court order of immediate disqualification of convicted legislators, and instead proposed that they may continue as a member while an appeal in a higher court was pending.
Mukherjee served as Finance Minister and subsequently Mecame minister for External Affairs, Defence, Finance and Commerce. He was India’s 13th President (2012 to 2017). He died on August 31, 2020 at the age of 84.
Sharmistha says her father himself was against the ordinance and in principle agreed with Rahul.
“But he was aghast at the manner in which Rahul acted. I was the one who first broke the news to him. After a long time, I saw my father getting so angry! His face became red and he shouted, ‘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’,” she writes.
“The Prime Minister is abroad. Does he even realise the implication of his actions and the effect it will have on Prime Minister and the government? What right does he have to humiliate the PM like this,” Mukherjee went on to tell his daughter.
