‘He shocked me’: Pranab Mukherjee dropped a PM hint. How Sonia Gandhi reacted | Political Pulse News
The late Pranab Mukherjee, former President and a Congress veteran, once dropped a big hint about his Prime Ministerial ambitions and suggested a “change at the top” during a chat with then-UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. This was in 2010, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh firmly in the saddle in the UPA government’s second term. Gandhi has written about this conversation in her memoir, ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, published by HarperCollins India.
Mukherjee, Gandhi has written, had developed “serious differences” with then 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 1 understood as a hint of his long-held desire to become prime minister,” she wrote.
“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 meeting the press with Dr Manmohan Singh, the newly elected prime minister, after the United Progressive Alliance’s victory in May 2004. (Credit: Emmanuel Dunand /Getty Images)
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. Anthony, a former chief minister of Kerala; and Ahmed Patel,” she wrote.
