Pranab Mukherjee’s son, Abhijit Mukherjee, says he wants to review the president’s memoirs before publication

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Former President Pranab Mukherjee died in August.

New Delhi:

Pranab Mukherjee’s last book, which was teased as a collective term by the publisher, sparked a public dispute between his son Abhijit Mukherjee and his daughter Sharmishtha Mukherjee, both congress leaders. Initially, Abhijit Mukherjee tweeted that he wanted to review the memoir and asked the editors to stop the book before his written approval. Then Sharmistha Mukherjee told her brother that he was looking for “cheap advertising” and forbade him to create “unnecessary hurdles” in the publication of her father’s book.

Abhijit Mukherjee’s surprising request came days after excerpts were published alleging that former President Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were responsible for the departure of Congress from power.

In today’s tweets, Abhijit Mukherjee, a former congressman, said “motivated excerpts” were circulating on “certain media platforms” without his consent.

“I, the son of the author of the memoir ‘The Presidential Memoirs’, ask you to stop the publication of the memoirs and motivated excerpts that have already been published on certain media platforms without my written consent,” Mukherjee wrote.

“Since my father is no more, I, as his son, would like to go through the contents of the final copy of the book before it is published, as I believe if my father had been alive today he would have done the same,” he wrote.

“Therefore I ask you as a son to stop the publication immediately without my written consent until I have looked through the contents! I have already sent you a detailed letter on this matter, which will reach you soon!”

Two hours later his sister Sharmistha hung him up to dry and even called him out for the title mistake, which he himself had changed in a tweet.

“I, the daughter of the author of the memoir ‘The Presidential Years’, urge my brother @ABHIJIT_LS not to take any unnecessary hurdles in the publication of the last book our father wrote. He finished the manuscript before he fell ill,” wrote Sharmistha Mukherjee.

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“The final draft contains my fathers’ handwritten notes and comments, which were strictly followed. The views he has expressed are his own and no one should try to prevent them from being published for cheap publicity. That would be the greatest disadvantage to our deceased Father, “she said.

Her farewell photo: “By the way, the title of the book is ‘The Presidential Years’, not ‘The Presidential Memoirs’.”

In the last volume of “The Presidential Years”, Pranab Mukherjee, who died in August, writes that “some members of Congress” believed that if he had become Prime Minister in 2004 instead of Manmohan Singh, the party would not have lost power. The memoirs fall when the leadership of Congress, chiefly the Gandhi, are openly criticized by some leaders for being clearly drifting and attractive.

“Some members of Congress have theorized that if I had become Prime Minister in 2004, the party might have turned the Lok Sabha drubbing off in 2014. While I disagree with this view, I believe that the party’s leadership will have the political focus afterwards has lost My appointment as President. While Sonia Gandhi was unable to regulate party affairs, Dr. (Manmohan) Singh’s prolonged absence from the House ended all personal contact with other MPs, “writes Dr. Mukherjee after excerpts published by publishers Rupa.

Mr Mukherjee also compares the two Prime Ministers he has worked with – Manmohan Singh and his successor Narendra Modi.

“I believe that the moral authority to run the government rests with the prime minister. The overall state of the nation reflects the functioning of the prime minister and his administration. While Dr. Singh was busy rescuing the coalition that weighed on the governance, Modi appeared to have adopted a more autocratic style of governance in his first term, as evidenced by the bitter relationship between government, lawmakers and the judiciary. Only time will tell if there is a better understanding of such matters in government in the second term, “he writes according to the extracts.

In publishing an earlier part of the book at an event in Rashtrapati Bhawan, Mr. Mukherjee made it clear that his diaries and notes would be in the safe care of his daughter after his death, and also noted that “some parts should never be published”.

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