New Delhi: Late former President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee Tuesday hit back at Congress Parliamentary Chairperson (CPP) Sonia Gandhi over her remark in her memoir that the veteran leader once surprised her in 2010 by suggesting that the time had perhaps come for a “change at the top”.
Gandhi shared the anecdote in her memoir, “Belonging: A Journey Of Love”, while describing the working relationship between the Congress leadership and the government headed by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Taking to X, Sharmistha Mukherjee asked Sonia Gandhi, “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 and governance, hard work and 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 recalled.
Emphasising that her father came from a very humble background, Sharmistha Mukherjee said: “Whatever he achieved in his life was through sheer merit and hard work. There was no one to serve him positions, including PM-ship, on a platter due to dynastic entitlements.”
She argued that if a well-deserving person harbours ambition to become Prime Minister, what’s wrong with that, “unless Sonia ji was ‘shocked’ by the fact that anyone outside the Nehru family could even dare to nurture such an ambition and furthermore dared to ‘hint’ it to her?”
Sharmistha Mukherjee further said: “In this same context, I read that she (Sonia) said she felt ‘he never held it against me’. From what I read in his diaries and whatever conversation he had with me, I would like to reassure her that he did not hold it against her or anyone else.”
She asserted that her father, Pranab Mukherjee, was a “pragmatic person with deep understanding”.
“He understood her reasons and insecurities that all human beings are prone to,” she added.
Sonia Gandhi recalled that Mukherjee, whom she always addressed as Pranab ji, would sometimes stay back after meetings of the Strategy Group, which had been constituted to discuss important matters scheduled to be taken up in Parliament, for an informal conversation.
“We also met regularly as members of the Strategy Group, set up to discuss issues to be taken up in Parliament. Sometimes Pranab ji, as I always called him, would stay back for a chat,” she recalled in the book.
Describing one such conversation in 2010, Gandhi said Mukherjee had developed “serious differences” with the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. During one interaction, after expressing his frustration over the situation, Mukherjee made a remark that left her surprised.
She said she understood his suggestion of a possible change in leadership as an indirect indication of his desire to occupy the country’s top political office.
“He (Pranab) had developed serious differences with the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, and on one occasion, in 2010, I think after expressing his frustration, he shocked me with the suggestion that perhaps it was time for a change at the top, which I understood as a hint of his long-held desire to become prime minister,” Gandhi wrote.
