New Delhi: A month before its scheduled release, Pranab Mukherjee’s last book, whose excerpts have just been released by the publishers, has caused a public fight between his son Abhijit Mukherjee and daughter Sharmishtha Mukherjee, both Congress leaders. Rupa Publication has announced that the memoir will be out in January 2021.
Taking to Twitter, Abhijit Mukherjee began the spat by saying that he wanted to vet the memoirs and asked the publishers to stop the book before his written consent. This was followed by Sharmishta openly siding with the publisher as she hit out at Abhijit. She asked him him from creating “unnecessary hurdles” in the release of their father’s book.
A series of tweets from Abhijit came days after the release of excerpts in which the former President blamed Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh for the Congress’s disastrous performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Abhijit said that “motivated excerpts” were circulating in “certain media platforms” without his consent. “I , the son of the author of the Memoir ‘The Presidential Memoirs’ request you to kindly stop the publication of the memoir as well as motivated excerpts which is already floating in certain media platforms without my written consent,” he added.
“Since my father is no more , I being his son want to go through the contents of the final copy of the book before its publication as I believe , had my father been alive today , he too would have done the same,” he wrote. “Therefore, I being his son request you to immediately stop its publication without my written consent till I go through its contents! I have already sent you a detailed letter in this regard which will reach you soon!”
Two hours later, his sister Sharmistha took on him, even calling him out for the title error that he had himself amended in a tweet.
“I, daughter of the author of the memoir ‘The Presidential Years’, request my brother @ABHIJIT_LS not to create any unnecessary hurdles in publication of the last book written by our father. He completed the manuscript before he fell sick,” she wrote. “The final draft contains my dads’ hand written notes and comments that have been strictly adhered to. The views expressed by him are his own & no one should try to stop it from being published for any cheap publicity. That would be the greatest disservice to our departed father,” she said.
Sharmistha ended the conversation with a bounce: “Btw bro, the title of the book is ‘The Presidential Years’, not ‘The Presidential Memoirs’.”