In the second part of his memoirs, President Pranab Mukherjee has chronicled turbulent years from 1980 to 1996. (Press Trust of India photo)
The second volume of President Pranab Mukherjee's memoirs was released today and a third one is being written, but they by no means contain all of his "secrets", the author hinted.
"The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996" was released by Vice President Hamid Ansari. Speaking on the occasion at Rashtrapati Bhavan today, the President said, "Some of my secrets will be buried with me. I have asked my daughter, the custodian of these diaries, to digitize them but not share them."
The basic material he is putting in the book are from his diaries, the president explained. "I had an old habit of writing a page every day..."
In the second book, President Mukherjee has chronicled turbulent years - the Babri Masjid demolition, Operation Blue Star, moments after Indira Gandhi's assassination, his political isolation and his return to politics.
He has called his period out of limelight - the exit from the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet and the Congress party -- "a fiasco" that he himself had created.
"I have candidly recognised in the book that I should have not ventured this because I was never a mass leader and I did not have the type of following which rebels from Congress like Ajay Mukherjee in the 1960s or recently Mamata and in one sense Indira-ji herself had," the President said.
Regarding the light he has shed on the years, he said it was "for the readers" to read and come to their own conclusion.
"I did not deliberately speak on (matters) which are highly confidential... I had a bit of a conservative approach. As and when facts will be released by the government, people will come to know. Not from somebody's account who was in the government," he said.
Senior BJP leader L K Advani, former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai and former Union Minister Karan Singh were among those present at the function.