Book recounts how Shastri put a high price on ideals

Lily

B.R
Staff member
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New Delhi: At a time when politicians in the country are making news for corruption and misuse of power, comes a book on Lal Bahadur Shastri, the country's second prime minister who was so upright that he deposited money in government coffers because his sons had used his official car.

The incident has been captured in the book Lal Bahadur Shastri: Past Forward by his son Sunil Shastri, a Congress politician and a former minister in Uttar Pradesh.

Sunil Shastri says he used to imagine having a big luxury car commensurate with the status of his father and Lal Bahadur Shastri did get a Chevrolet Impala for official use.

"One day I told babuji's [father's] personal secretary to ask the driver to bring the Chevrolet to the residence. We asked the driver for the keys and went for a drive," he says in the book.

Lal Bahadur Shastri later confronted the driver, saying, "Do you keep a logbook with you?"

Sunil recalls: "When he [the driver] nodded, babuji asked him to note the distance the car had run the previous day. When the driver said 14 km, he advised him to note it ‘for private use' and then asked amma [mother] to give his personal secretary the amount applicable to be deposited in the government account."

Lal Bahadur Shastri was prime minister from June 1964 to January 1966.

 
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