Pranab makes modest mistake, says Montek was part of liberalisation trinity

Former President Pranab Mukherjee launched Congress leader P Chidambaram’s book, Speaking Truth to Power, a collection of his articles, on Tuesday, at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library in New Delhi. 

In his speech, Mukherjee said Chidambaram, who was a commerce minister, was one of the trinity comprising then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who ushered in economic liberalisation under the stewardship of P V Narasimha Rao. Mukherjee seldom gets his facts wrong. But this time, possibly out of modesty, he did. Ahluwalia was a bureaucrat in the government then, and Mukherjee headed the Planning Commission. Ahluwalia helmed the Planning Commission during the United Progressive Alliance years.