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Sanjaya Baru not an expert on father: Manmohan's daughter
Kolkata, Jan 24
Clarifying that her book on
her father and former prime minister Manmohan Singh was not a response
to the memoir penned by his media advisor Sanjaya Baru, author Daman
Singh Saturday said she doesn't consider Baru as an expert on Manmohan
Singh and it "wasn't worth" her while to read his book.
"The
Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh"
was a 2014 memoir by Indian policy analyst Sanjaya Baru, who was
Manmohan Singh's media advisor from May 2004 till August 2008.
"I
did not write my book as a response to Sanjaya's book at all. I have
not read Sanjaya's book. Personally, I prefer to read a book written by
an expert, an insider and honestly, I never considered Sanjaya to be an
expert on my father.
"I mean, after all, he was just a media
advisor. He essentially advised the media not the prime minister," Daman
Singh said here during a discussion at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary
Meet.
Daman Singh is the author of "Strictly Personal: Manmohan
and Gursharan" which traces the journey of the former prime minister and
his wife from the 1930s to 2004.
She said she would have read
the book if the writer was an insider and was privy to what goes in
inside the Prime Minister's Office.
"So Sanjaya was not at all
involved in any policy making, any decision making... so I honestly
don't see how he could have got to know my father as an individual as a
prime minister particularly well.
"So it wasn't really worth my
while reading the book. If somebody who actually knew him had written
the book, somebody who actually knew how the government works, how the
Prime Minister's Office works... somebody like that had written the
book, I would have loved to read it," she said.
Daman Singh also revealed Manmohan Singh doesn't disclose anything pertaining to office.
"My
father doesn't tell us anything what goes in office so we are dying to
know... we are always questioning him, poking him and prodding him to
get something out of him... he never tells us anything.
"So if there was a book that actually explained, I would have loved to read it but I am afraid this is not that book," she said.
She
also stressed it was her "deliberate intention" to launch her book
after the Lok Sabha elections to distance herself from her father's
position.
"I started writing my book in 2009, before my father
became the prime minister for the second term. I assume Sanjaya started
around then. I worked on my book for five years. I don't know how long
he worked on it.
"He brought out his book just before the
elections. It was my deliberate intention to bring out my book after the
elections because I didn't want to use my father's position to promote
my book.
"If he was prime minister and my book came out, then it
is sort of labelled as a PM's daughter's book and I thought that would
be sort of unethical thing to do. I wanted to release my book without
that label," she added.