Pranab Mukherjee mentioned how Rahul's strong opposition to a government ordinance in 2013, where he publicly criticised it, hurt the Congress in the 2014 elections.
The book 'Pranab, My Father' by Sharmishtha Mukherjee talks about her father, Pranab Mukherjee, who was the 13th President of India. In the book, it's revealed that Pranab had thoughts about Rahul Gandhi, a leader of the Congress party.
After the Congress faced a big loss in 2014, Rahul Gandhi visited Pranab at Rashtrapati Bhawan. According to Sharmishtha, Pranab felt that Rahul talked about the election results as if he wasn't involved, like an outsider.
Pranab noted that Rahul was polite and had many questions but was not yet politically mature. He also mentioned how Rahul's strong opposition to a government ordinance in 2013, where he publicly criticised it, hurt the Congress in the 2014 elections.
Pranab disagreed with the ordinance, but he didn't like the way Rahul handled it. He thought Rahul was arrogant and acting without the political wisdom of his family.
"Pranab himself was against the ordinance… in principle, he agreed with Rahul. But he was aghast at the manner in which Rahul acted…’Who does he (Rahul) think he is? He is not a member of the Cabinet. Who is he to publicly trash a decision of Cabinet? The Prime Minister is abroad…What right does he have to humiliate the PM like this?'" Sharmistha recalls her father as saying.
That night, she says, Mukherjee wrote in his diary, "'Rahul Gandhi gate-crashed a press conference by Ajay Maken and described the decision of Cabinet as 'nonsense'. This is totally uncalled for. He has all the arrogance of his Gandhi–Nehru lineage without their political acumen…'". She writes that she thought "his faith in Rahul was shaken after this incident".
Later, after the 2014 elections, when Rahul talked about the party's defeat, Pranab found it surprising. He felt that Rahul's distance from the party and lack of a strong approach might be why the party didn't perform well, especially compared to Narendra Modi and the BJP.
"'Perhaps his distance from the party and a lack of killer instinct could be reasons for his failure to enthuse the party workers to fight the election which BJP got from Narendra Modi,'" she quotes her father as saying.
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 "'What right does he have to humiliate PM like this': What Pranab Mukherjee told his daughter about Rahul Gandhi")
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