When Pranab Mukherjee said how can Rahul Gandhi's office run the PMO if they don't know AM-PM difference

Author and daughter of the former president of India Pranab Mukherjee, Sharmistha Mukherjee's latest book, 'In Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers', is to be released soon.

Ahead of the release, Sharmistha revealed some interesting anecdotes from the life of the late president.


While talking to news wire agency ANI, she revealed that once Rahul Gandhi came to visit Pranab Mukherjee. However, instead of the appointed time in the evening, he came to meet him in the morning.

"In the morning one day Rahul Gandhi came to meet him (Pranab Mukherjee)...as it turned out that Rahul was actually supposed to meet him in the evening...when I mentioned it to my father, he sarcastically commented that, if Rahul's office doesn't differentiate between the am and pm, how do they hope to run the PMO one day?" Sharmistha Mukherjee recalled.

In the book, the former Congress spokesperson who quit politics in 2021 provides a glimpse into the illustrious life of her father, where she also says that he did not have any rancour against Sonia Gandhi for not making him the prime minister, and definitely not against the man chosen - Manmohan Singh.

Through her father's diary entries, personal stories narrated to her and her own research, Sharmistha uncovers new, hitherto unknown facets of his political life - his unfulfilled ambition of becoming India's prime minister arising out of his inability to emerge as the 'number one person' to earn Sonia Gandhi's trust, the personality cult around the Nehru-Gandhi family and Rahul Gandhi's lack of charisma and political understanding among other things, according to the book's publishers Rupa Publications.

Pranab Mukherjee served as India's finance minister and subsequently became minister for External Affairs, Defence, Finance and Commerce. He was India's 13th president (2012 to 2017). He died on August 31, 2020 at the age of 84.