Former Union Minister in the UPA government and senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has taken a jibe at former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.
On the release of his book Memoirs of a Maverick, he said, ‘Narasimha Rao was the first BJP PM of the country’.
Speaking in the discussion on the release of his book, Iyer said, Narasimha Rao was a communal and Hindutva-leaning leader. During this, Iyer also mentioned his conversation with Narasimha Rao.
Manishankar Iyer said that once Iyer was taking out Ram-Rahim Yatra with PV Narasimha Rao. During that time Rao told him, he has no objection to his visit, but he had objection to his definition of being secular. Iyer says that when I asked him what was the problem with my definition. He said that Mani you are not understanding that this is a Hindu country. I sat on the chair and told him that BJP also says the same.
Iyer’s autobiography “Memoirs of a Maverick – The First Fifty Years (1941-1991)” hit the market on Monday.
Published by Juggernaut Books, the book chronicles Aiyar’s journey from Doon School to St. Stephen’s College and Cambridge University and from a top diplomat to a close aide of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
In conversation with senior journalist Vir Sanghvi at the book’s formal launch here, Aiyar talks about his relationship with former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his tenure as Consul General in Karachi from December 1978 to January 1982.
Congress leader and Rajiv Gandhi’s wife Sonia Gandhi was also present on this occasion.
