New Delhi, December 15
Eminent Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has said that he never called Narendra Modi a ‘chahwala’ and his perception of the BJP leader’s unfitness for the post of Prime Minister had nothing to do with his tea-selling past. . Iyer has mentioned the controversy arising from his comments before the 2014 general elections in his book ‘A Maverick in Politics’, published by ‘Juggernaut’. Iyer (83) said in the book that in 2014, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Modi was being promoted as a clear winner in the elections. He wrote in the book, “I was appalled as to how a man whose image is tarnished by the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, could aspire to lead the India of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.” “
Iyer said that is why in an interview during the All India Congress Committee session in January 2014, he emphasized that it is insulting that a person who does not know that Alexander never came to Pataliputra or Takshila was in Pakistan, he is trying to sit on the post that Jawaharlal Nehru once sat on. -News-Patiala
‘Pranab should have been made Prime Minister and Manmohan Singh should have been made President in 2012’
New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Iyer has said in his new book that in 2012, when the post of President fell vacant, Pranab Mukherjee should have been given the command of the UPA-2 government and Manmohan Singh should have been made the President. should have Iyer has written in the book that if this had happened at that time, the situation of the UPA government would not have been bad. He said that the decision to retain Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister and send Pranab Mukherjee to Rashtrapati Bhavan had ‘killed’ the UPA’s chances of forming the government for the third time. In his book, Iyer recounts his early days in politics, former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s regime, his stint as a minister in UPA-1, his stint in the Rajya Sabha and then his ‘fall’. Iyer wrote, “In 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to undergo bypass surgery several times. They became physically weak and their work speed slowed down which also affected the government. When the then Prime Minister’s health deteriorated, the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi also fell ill at the same time but the party did not make any official announcement about her health.
‘Modi distorted my statements’
Mani Shankar Iyer has also mentioned other controversies associated with him in the book and claimed that Modi distorted his statements. Iyer said that he had never made the comment regarding ‘neech’. He said that in view of his long career in diplomacy and political service, he cannot make caste comments but no one bothered to find out the facts. -News-Patiala