Never aspired to be the PM, says Pranab

Apparently, it was an ill-timed boast from Pranab Mukherjee that had soured his relations with Rajiv Gandhi after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in end-October 1984. Rajiv Gandhi not only dropped Mukherjee, considered to be the most powerful politician in the Congress after Indira, from his Cabinet, but he had to quit the party within two years.

At the launch of the second part of his memoirs, The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday, the President said stories about him having aspired to become the interim PM after Indira Gandhi’s assassination were "false and spiteful” and that he was left "shell-shocked and flabbergasted" at his ouster from the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet.
 
Vice-president Hamid Ansari unveiled the book. The first part, The Dramatic Decade-The Indira Gandhi Years’, was released on December 11, 2014. At Thursday’s event, the President mentioned his old habit of writing a page in his diary daily. The memoirs are mostly based on his diary entries.

The President has written about key events of his political life, including Operation Blue Star and Babri Masjid demolition. Mukherjee has termed his exit from the Rajiv cabinet and Congress party a "fiasco" which he himself had created.

"Many stories have been circulated that I aspired to be the interim prime minister, that I had staked claim and had to be persuaded otherwise…And that this created misgivings in Rajiv Gandhi's mind,” he said. Mukherjee said he “had heard no rumours (about his being dropped from the Rajiv Cabinet), nor had anyone in the party ever vaguely hinted at it. As it happened, P V Narsimha Rao, too, was on tenterhooks, calling me several times to check if I had received a call.”

The President admitted to "have sensed Rajiv's growing unhappiness and the hostility of those around him and taken pre-emptive action".

"To the question of why he dropped me from the Cabinet and expelled me from the party, all I can say is that he made mistakes and so did I. He let others influence him and listened to their calumnies against me. I let my frustration overtake my patience," he said.

After he was expelled in April 1986, Mukherjee had formed Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress (RSC). He later returned to the party in 1988. "I have candidly recognised in the book that I should have not ventured this because I was never a mass leader and I did not have the type of following which rebels from Congress like Ajoy Mukherjee in 1960s or recently Mamata (Banerjee) and in one sense Indiraji herself had," the President said.

He has also written how the opening of Ram Janmabhoomi temple site in Ayodhya was an "error of judgement" by Rajiv Gandhi and the demolition of Babri Masjid an act of "absolute perfidy" that destroyed India's image.

"The demolition of Babri Masjid was an act of absolute perfidy...It was the senseless, wanton destruction of a religious structure, purely to serve political ends. It deeply wounded the sentiments of the Muslim community in India and abroad. It destroyed India's image as a tolerant, pluralistic nation," he has written.

Recalling the Shah Bano case, the President says Rajiv Gandhi's action eroded his image of a modern man. Mukherjee says Rajiv Gandhi has been criticised for his excessive reliance on some close friends and advisors who installed the so-called 'babalog' government. "Some of them turned out to be fortune seekers."

Talking about the Operation Blue Star in 1984 to flush out terrorists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Mukherjee recalled that Indira Gandhi "understood the situation well and was clear that there was no other option. Aware that her own life was at risk, she took a conscious decision to go ahead in the best interest of the nation".

He writes that “while the Punjab situation was an aberration and a crisis of this nature is unlikely to recur, the lesson for future generations is that fissiparous tendencies have to be resisted at any cost. The Punjab crisis provided external elements an opportunity to take advantage of the disunity within India and sow the seeds of anarchy, Mukherjee said.

What could resonate in the present context is Mukherjee’s belief that the instrument of imposing President’s Rule in states could be liable to be misused. The President had on Tuesday given his assent to the union cabinet’s controversial decision of putting Arunachal Pradesh under central rule.

Mukherjee confessed that he has been a bit conservative in writing about sensitive issues. "It is for the readers to read and come to their own conclusion. I did not deliberately speak on (matters) which are highly confidential...As and when facts will be released by the government, the people would come to know," he said. Mukherjee said some facts from his years in governance will be buried with him

"That is why I have advised my daughter who is the custodian of this diary that never release this. You should digitise this but never release it. If you digitise it as and when government will find it necessary to release then they will release.