Everyone knows that the late President Pranab Mukherjee used to write about daily political events in a red-coloured diary. He claimed it contained too many sensitive events from his time to be published. Before his demise, he gifted it to his daughter, Sharmistha Mukherjee. Recently, Sharmistha organised a seminar remembering the late president. The seminar, organized by the ‘Pranab Mukherjee Legacy Foundation,’ was attended by all the country’s top bureaucrats who had worked with the late President in many capacities. In the seminar, Sharmistha announced that she is currently writing a book on Pranab Mukherjee, based on that secret red diary. She further said that many new explanations about some of the political events of his time will be revealed. Former Ambassador Pawan Verma said in that seminar that the diary will be a chronology of India’s modern political history.
Sitaram Yechury, who accompanied President Pranab Mukherjee on his first official visit to Bangladesh, spoke at a seminar honouring the late president, recounting how Mukherjee helped him in reaching Agartala to attend the Left Front Government’s swearing in ceremony in 2012. After the day visit was complete, Sitaram requested that the President let him go early so that he could reach Agartala to attend the swearing-in ceremony. Pranab then suggested that he go by road from Dhaka to Agartala, which would take only three hours. Accordingly, Sitaram’s visa to India was changed, and he was allowed to go to Agartala by road. Another seminar participant, Pawan Verma, jokingly said that’s why the late President wanted Sitaram to be in the Congress party and not in the CPM.
Seeing the overwhelming participation by RLD workers in western Uttar Pradesh in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, a section of Samajwadi leaders has started rethinking joining hands with the Congress party. Senior leader Shivpal Yadav is one of the leaders who is initiating dialogue with the Congress party, but SP Chief Akhilesh is not very enthusiastic about it. To sabotage his uncle’s plan, he gave a counter proposal to Congress. SP plans a yatra across Uttar Pradesh under a different name, and he wants Congress to join him. It seems as if Akhilesh’s new proposal has put a spanner in Shivpal’s move.