It did not take long for his rivals in the party to spread the word that Mukherjee was not playing his stock Ready Reckoner role on that momentous flight to New Delhi. As Number Two in Mrs G’s cabinet, he was pitching for the top post himself. The rumours soon reached Rajiv and Arun Nehru, the story goes, convinced the new prime minister that his mother’s trusted man was not to be trusted. Mukherjee was important enough to be made chairman of the Congress Campaign Committee ahead of the 1984 Lok Sabha polls. But when Rajiv announced his first cabinet after sweeping to an unprecedented victory with over 400 seats, Mukherjee’s name did not figure in the list.

A shattered Mukherjee soon left the Congress and tried to set up his own party. That was the only time he made such a mistake. Within two years, he realised that his future — for better or worse — lay with the Congress. No other party had the inclusiveness and the appeal, the history and the spread to suit his own catholic temperament or evoke his lifelong loyalty. By 1987, Rajiv Gandhi’s outlook had also changed. Bofors had happened, V.P. Singh had turned against him, his best friends — Arun Nehru and Arun Singh — had deserted him, and the words trust and loyalty suddenly acquired a whole new meaning. So Rajiv was only too happy to get back the support of his mother’s favourite minister and made him the chairman of the Congress party’s Economic Advisory Cell. The Congress party lost the 1989 elections but Mukherjee was back in his old role as chairman of the campaign committee when elections were held again in 1991. In case Rajiv had survived and won the elections, Mukherjee would certainly have figured in his cabinet.

... contd.