The second volume of President Pranab Mukherjee’s memoirs The Turbulent Years (1980-1996) was released on Thursday even as the author himself said that “some facts are to be buried with me” at the event at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Vice-President Hamid Ansari released the first copy of the book, with a fairly eclectic audience of Indian Council for Cultural Relations chief Karan Singh, former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, and former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh. Mr. Mukherjee admitted that the launch of his own party, Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress, after he quit the Congress over differences with Rajiv Gandhi, was a “fiasco.”
I am sworn to secrecy, says Pranab
He also said that his desire to keep certain things confidential was related to his oath as a Minister of the Union.
“I have a conservative approach to this,” he said. “I write at least a page in my diary every day, and its custodian is my daughter [Sharmishta Mukherjee]. I have told her that you may digitise the contents if you want, but you will not release them. People may come to know of events when the government of the day releases files related to that period, not by someone’s recollection of it. Some facts are to be buried with me,” he said.
The book but has some fairly explosive details of India’s recent history, including the three deaths at the top of India’s political pyramid that President Mukherjee witnessed — that of Sanjay Gandhi, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Indian Council for Cultural Relations chief Karan Singh, who also spoke on the book, said Mr. Mukherjee had made rather “shrewd assessments of personalities like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi or P.V. Narasimha Rao”, but the messages he gives in the course of the book are also important. “These are difficult times,” Dr. Singh said in the presence of BJP veteran L.K. Advani.
The Editor of The Pioneer, Chandan Mitra, also spoke. The book has been published by Rupa.
From getting candid on Manmohan Singh's transfer from the RBI to the Planning Commission to the then-goverment's stand on Ayodhya, here's what the President reveals in his book.
 | >I have no hand in Manmohan’s ouster from RBI: PranabPrime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was firmly in the saddle and I was out of the Cabinet and the party," he writes in his book 'The Turbulent Years' . > Read More... |
>Rajiv erred in opening Ayodhya site, says Pranab in memoir"The demolition of the Babri Masjid was an act of “absolute perfidy, which should make all Indians hang their heads in shame.” > Read More... | |
| >Pranab against attending Victory Day paradesMr. Mukherjee says in his memoirs that attending World War II Victory Day commemorations is an insult to the Independence movement. > Read More... |
>Centre had plans to nationalise Union Carbide plant: Pranab"Nationalising it will discourage future investments into India. This will be a huge setback," Mr. Mukherjee in his memoir. > Read More... | |
