In 2023, Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee made a big claim about the incident related to this in her book ‘Pranab My Father, A Daughter Remembers’.
Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India, died on Thursday at the age of 92. He was admitted to Delhi AIIMS in the evening after his health deteriorated. After the news of the death of Manmohan Singh, a well-known economist of his time, the countrymen paid tribute to him. He is considered the father of reforming India’s economy under the leadership of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in 1992. However, his achievements are not only related to his political life, but while being in the bureaucracy, he was awarded the country’s second highest civilian honor Padma Vibhushan in 1987. Not only this, he has been given many big honors in the country and abroad.
There was a time when there was a lot of discussion about giving Bharat Ratna to Manmohan Singh. However, its possibilities remained limited to discussions only. Meanwhile, in 2023, Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee made a big claim related to this in her book Pranab My Father, A Daughter Remembers.
According to Sharmistha, Pranab Mukherjee wanted to honor Manmohan Singh with Bharat Ratna while he was the President. Sharmistha has written in the book that on 30 October 2013, her father wrote things related to this in his diary. He had asked the then Cabinet Secretary to talk to Pulak Chatterjee, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Pranab had said that the Cabinet Secretary should convey a message to Pulak that he should talk to Sonia Gandhi, who was then the chairperson of UPA, in this regard.
In the book, Sharmistha told that there is no further mention in Pranab Mukherjee’s book about this demand to give Bharat Ratna to Manmohan Singh. In such a situation, it is not clear whether Pulak Chatterjee even discussed this with Sonia Gandhi or not. Sharmistha says that she does not know what happened next on this demand of giving the country’s highest honor to Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Pranab Mukherjee used to give credit for economic reforms to Manmohan Singh
Not only this, Sharmistha says that despite some mutual differences, Pranab Mukherjee was always a fan of Manmohan Singh. Pranab used to give credit to Manmohan Singh for the economic reforms done in the country as Finance Minister between 1991 and 1996 and for handling India’s economy as Prime Minister during the economic recession of 2008.