Sonia Gandhi
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
2004
No to PM: Rahul drew the line for Sonia
The book reveals details about a meeting which was held at 10, Janpath in the afternoon on May 17, 2004. According to K Natwar Singh, Sonia, Priyanka Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were present in the room when he reached.
“She (Sonia) was sitting there on the sofa…. Manmohan Singh and Priyanka (were there as well)… Sonia Gandhi was looking distraught…Then Rahul came in and said in front of all of us, ‘I will not let you become prime minister. My father was assassinated, my Dadi was assassinated. In six months, you will be killed.
“Rahul threatened to take an extreme step if Sonia did not listen to him. ‘This was no ordinary threat,’ recalled Natwar Singh, ‘Rahul is a strong-willed person. He gave Sonia 24 hours to decide…”
Sonia was in tears after Rahul said he was prepared to “take any possible step to prevent his mother” from taking up the PMship.
The book says that after she was elected CPP leader, Sonia and Vajpayee spoke. “Vajpayee congratulated her and said, ‘You have my ashirwad in abundance.’ And then he added, ‘Don’t take the prize. You will divide the country and could end up straining the loyalty of the civil services.’”
Her memoir
Publishers
Ritu Sarin, Nov 11, 2026: The Times of India
Besides the frontal and repeated attacks on the Narendra Modi Government and the R S S which Sonia Gandhi has made mostly in the second half of her memoir, there were also her references to incursions by China which are known to have contributed to the impasse and eventually led to the parting of ways with PRH. While a criticism of the Modi Government (“it is my belief that the ground has (now) shifted under their feet”) is sprinkled across several of the seven sections of the memoirs, the references to the China incursions come towards the end.
Another problematic reference reportedly was to the 2019 Pulwama terror attack where 40 young paramilitary soldiers were killed. Sonia has recalled how “it was a catastrophe that shocked and stunned the nation. The Modi Government had failed to take cognizance of a number of intelligence inputs warning of a possible terrorist attack and inexplicably hadn’t provided the safer air transport requested to move the soldiers. To this day it has not come forward with a clarification.”
Besides her criticism, Gandhi has acknowledged that Narendra Modi and she come from very different ideological worlds and background and that his idea of the country was vastly different from hers. She writes, “Narendra Modi’s idea of India was constructed by the ideologies of the R S S and the experience of his own growing up… he was fighting for his vision of India, and I for mine… His path to politics was charted along a course completely different from mine. But there were elements of his discomfort with the ruling elite of our times that I, too, had come to understand well…”
Giving interesting statistics, Gandhi has claimed that the NDA Government has “failed to come forward with any new ideas of governance and, instead, adopted no less than thirty of our UPA-era programmes – but retitled them under catchier names and considerably reduced in scale and that some of these welfare schemes the Prime Minister had himself criticised”.
She has also written that in all, nine elected state governments of the Congress and its allies were overturned by what she describes as “underhand means.” Her reaction to all this: “Indignation and despair filled my heart each time I witnessed the anti-democratic methods by which the Modi regime manipulated and toppled our elected state governments, casting aside the people’s mandates.”
She has, in several chapters, criticised the R S S for their anti- Nehru-Gandhi family stance in Indian politics. She writes, “The R S S propaganda machine has worked overtime for decades and seems never to take a day off – down to the present, when its rate of production and distribution has received a huge boost from social media. AI creations and deepfakes now appearing on it are likely to add credibility to its malicious concoctions.”
She writes that she was, naturally, the BJP’s “favourite” target and goes on to describe the nature of the attacks she has faced. “I was, as ever, going to bring ‘Rome Raj’ whatever that was. I was a cabaret dancer, a ‘Monica Lewinsky,’ a spy…”
According to her, by the time of the 2019 elections, when the people’s mood appeared to be changing in the favour of the Congress, the BJP had mastered the propaganda game. Her charge: “By this time the Government, in addition to using mainly human agents to spread its message on social media, had developed a well-funded cyber arsenal, using cyber armies of bots to control narratives and influence voters. In addition, it had in place the mainstream media and the agencies of the state under its control.”
There is also a listing of what she says were the current Government’s “autocratic methods,” for instance, the implementation of the 2016 demonetisation scheme wherein she recalls, “none of the stated objectives of the move were met, while at one blow it threw trade into disarray, shut down vital sectors of the economy and drove millions to hardship. Their misery was compounded by the imposition of a complicated and multilayered tax, GST, which has adversely impacted the backbone of our economy.” She has also been
In her concluding analysis, Gandhi writes that she has no doubt that the long-term design of the R S S of dominance and imposition of one religion, one religion and language will be resisted.
Maneka Gandhi’s exit from household
Nov 11, 2026: The Indian Express
When Maneka Anand married Sanjay Gandhi in 1974, she became part of a family deeply intertwined with the country’s politics. Less than a decade later, she would leave the household following a dispute with her mother-in-law, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, setting off a public confrontation. Looking back, Sonia Gandhi likens the events to a “reality show”.
In her memoir ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, Sonia revisits Maneka’s arrival in the Gandhi household, the disagreements that followed, Sanjay’s growing political ambitions, and the events after his death in 1980 that led to Maneka’s departure. Arrival of ‘Choti Bahu’ & first cracks
Towards the end of 1973, Sanjay was introduced to Maneka, whom Sonia describes as “a pretty and vivacious girl, ten years younger than him and still a minor”. They married within a year, and Maneka, then 18, became the younger daughter-in-law of the Gandhi household, or the “Choti Bahu”.
Sonia, whom the household staff addressed as “Bahurani”, says she initially welcomed Maneka’s arrival. She believed the two could regard themselves as equal daughters of the family and share space in the house.
“Maneka was full of zest. It was refreshing at first to have a younger sister-in-law in the house. But slowly, the atmosphere began to change, with irritations cropping up in the home,” she writes.
Sonia says she often chose not to respond when Maneka spoke rudely, preferring to avoid arguments. But she would answer when she felt Maneka had crossed a line. “When she spoke rudely, by and large I’d remain silent to keep the peace, but when I felt it had gone too far, I wouldn’t hold back and would respond curtly,” she recalls.
Maneka Gandhi used ‘expletives that shocked us’: Sonia Gandhi
Differences between Sanjay and Maneka also began to surface within months of their marriage. Sonia writes that their arguments grew louder and more frequent, with other members of the household witnessing the exchanges.
“When annoyed, she would use expletives, even in the presence of my mother-in-law, that were taboo in the home; they embarrassed him and shocked us,” she writes, adding that life in a joint family may not have been easy for a young woman with a sociable and gregarious temperament.
Maneka appeared to settle into the household when she began accompanying Sanjay to political functions and programmes. But Sonia says her growing involvement in his political life also affected his relationship with Rajiv Gandhi.
The brothers, whom she describes as inseparable until a few months earlier, began to drift apart.
Sanjay Gandhi’s political ambitions, Indira’s concerns Sanjay’s political role had grown during the Emergency, when his name became associated with the excesses of the period. Sonia writes that he began speaking in interviews about the “slow workings of the bureaucracy” and expressing what could have been “construed as being critical of the prime minister”.
Some factions within the Congress supported Sanjay’s political ambitions, but his growing influence did not always find favour with his mother. Sonia says Indira believed Maneka encouraged Sanjay’s political activities instead of restraining him.
Recalling a conversation between Indira and her Cabinet Secretary P N Dhar, Sonia writes that the Prime Minister referred to her younger daughter-in-law by saying: “Uske abhi se par nikalne lage hain.” (She has started growing wings already.)
The differences deepened after the 1978 elections, when Rajiv blamed Sanjay for the Congress’s electoral setback. Sonia recounts a family discussion in which Rajiv held his brother responsible for decisions that, in his view, had contributed to the party’s defeat.
“He felt that Sanjay had contributed in great measure to the calamitous outcome: his stubbornness, his impetuosity, his rush to implement programmes that weren’t well thought out, his unwillingness to heed well-meant admonitions, his acting in many instances without his mother’s knowledge,” the book reads.
During one discussion, Rajiv confronted Sanjay, saying: “I cannot forgive you, Sanjay, you have brought Ma to this pass.” Indira agreed with Rajiv’s assessment. “What Rajiv said is true, Sanjay! How many times you gave orders without my knowledge,” she said, according to Sonia’s account.
Maneka intervened in the argument, prompting Indira to challenge her to deny the allegations. Maneka then withdrew from the exchange, but Sonia says the confrontation added to the hostility between her and the rest of the family.
Sonia also accuses Maneka of making sarcastic remarks about the family and using her contacts among journalists to circulate stories about them.
“As far as she was concerned, we were enemies. She spread stories about us through journalists with whom she was in touch. The one that galled us most was the outright lie that Rajiv and I had intended to flee the country when the elections were lost,” she writes in her memoir.
Sanjay’s death and the breakdown of ties
The conflict took a turn after Sanjay died in an aircraft crash on June 23, 1980. He was 33. His death left Maneka a widow at 23, with a three-month-old son, Feroze Varun Gandhi.
Sonia writes that Maneka’s mother was believed to be encouraging Sanjay’s supporters within the Congress to seek a political position for his widow. Indira, however, felt Maneka was too young to take on a leadership role and should first focus on raising her son.
“She had a three-month-old baby and would need to be with the little one; she should be patient; there would be enough time later to fulfil her political ambitions,” Sonia writes. But, according to her, Maneka had other plans.
The break between Maneka and the family became apparent around the time of Varun’s first birthday. Sonia says that Indira had suggested holding a small gathering for her grandson, but later learned that Maneka had organised a party at the house of Vasundhara Raje, daughter of the dowager Rajmata of Gwalior.
Raje supported the R S S and opposed Indira politically. Sonia says the choice of venue hurt the Prime Minister.
Raje would later facilitate the sale of Maneka’s magazine, Surya, to an R S S member. Sonia describes the decision as an insult to Indira and to the memory of her son and father, as well as those who had fought the R S S’s communal ideology during the freedom struggle.
“With this act Maneka had crossed all limits. To my mother-in-law, it was a deliberate challenge,” she writes.
Maneka’s exit from Gandhi household
The confrontation came to a head while Indira was on an official visit to London. She learnt that Maneka had begun moving her belongings out of the house. After returning, Indira confronted her over her political activities and asked her to choose between giving them up and moving out of the household.
Sonia says Maneka responded with a letter that accused her mother-in-law of wrongdoing. She believes Maneka had planned her departure in advance and had discussed it with a journalist friend weeks before the confrontation.
“Maneka returned a missive full of accusations, obviously meant to damage her mother-in-law. It became clear that she was intent on creating a furore by which she would leave the house, placing the blame publicly on Mrs Gandhi. She had confided her plan weeks in advance to a journalist friend,” she writes.
Sonia says Maneka’s account of the departure placed the blame not only on Indira but also on Rajiv and her.
“The manner in which the whole incident was manipulated, the propaganda circus that followed, turned that sordid event into what would be termed today a ‘reality show’,” she says.
Dispute over Varun
The separation did not end the family’s disputes. Sonia writes that the Gandhi family went to court over access to Varun, with Maneka eventually denying them visiting rights.
The proceedings continued for years. Around Varun’s fourth birthday, Indira asked Sonia to deliver gifts to his nursery school because she was occupied with the situation in Punjab.
The following day, newspapers carried allegations from Maneka that Sonia had been sent to kidnap the child.
” My mother-in-law’s last reply to Maneka’s lawyer was dated April 19, 1984, less than two months before the fateful army action that came to be known as Operation Blue Star,” Sonia writes.
Maneka eventually entered electoral politics. She contested the 1984 Lok Sabha elections independently but lost to Rajiv Gandhi. She later joined V P Singh’s Janata Dal in 1988 and formally joined the BJP in 2004.
Bill Clinton’s visit post-Lewinsky
Nov 10, 2026: The Indian Express
By the time Bill Clinton visited India in 2000, the Monica Lewinsky scandal had cooled down; however, Sonia Gandhi notes in her memoir that “old habits die hard,” recounting how the former US president would now and then be seen “surreptitiously sizing up the more striking women” during a reception.
This memory is one of numerous encounters with global figures, such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Princess Diana, detailed in Gandhi’s newly published book, Belonging: A Journey Of Love.
In the book, she offers an extended account of a reception hosted for Clinton by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. She writes: “President Bill Clinton was staying at the Sheraton hotel with his daughter, Chelsea, and his delegation in 2000 when I called on him with our foreign minister. Friendly, informal, and exuding confidence, he appeared more keen to give us his own views and predictions about Kashmir- ‘a nuclear flashpoint’, in his words, ‘one of the most dangerous places on earth’–than to pay attention to our point of view.”
“The Monica Lewinsky scandal had subsided a little by then, but old habits die hard; at the reception held by Prime Minister Vaipayee in his honour, I noticed him every now and then surreptitiously sizing up the more striking women present,” Gandhi recalls.
In her book, Gandhi also shares interesting anecdotes from then French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2008 visit when he made a trip to India without his then partner Carla Bruni.
“It was said that he (Sarkozy) had been advised not to bring her (Bruni) because they were unmarried which would have been awkward at official functions. Seated at the banquet table, I was amused when the wife of our Vice President Mohammad Ansari, seated next to him, proceeded to quiz him good-naturedly about his marital plans. Was he going to get married? And if so, had the date been decided? Was he missing her? “President Sarkozy seemed unperturbed by the cross-examination, even eager to share details of his love life, answering all her questions while continuously messaging his Carla on his phone,” says Gandhi.
She says that she met the couple on a subsequent visit at a private dinner given by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and his wife some years later.
“By this time President Sarkozy and Carla Bruni had tied the knot and made their appearance together. He was obviously besotted with his tall and beautiful wife of Italian and French descent, who had been a popular singer and songwriter in Europe, as well as a top model. All eyes were on her as she glided into the room in an elegant long gown, graceful and slim, demure and blue-eyed,” Gandhi says in the book.
“She spoke cordially but infrequently–while her husband held forth, expounding his views to our prime minister on what India should do in what I felt was a rather arrogant manner, unmindful of the fact that he was talking to someone more senior, more experienced and more knowledgeable,” she says.
Rajiv Gandhi regretted shifting Venkateswaran
Ritu Sarin, Nov 11, 2026: The Indian Express
“I knew the moment I’d spoken that I’d made a blunder. I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth.” – This is what former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi told his wife, Sonia, after his remark at a press conference forced the exit of then Foreign Secretary AP Venkateswaran.
Sonia Gandhi, who later led the Congress, wrote about the episode surrounding Venkateswaran’s exit in her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, published by HarperCollins India.
“There were occasional embarrassing instances, such as his public sacking of a senior official. He was furious to learn that his foreign secretary had breached protocol and exceeded his brief during a visit to Pakistan. When a question was asked about it at a press conference, Rajiv said abruptly, ‘You’ll soon be talking to a new foreign secretary.’ This blunt dismissal of the official, who was present, caused a furore, and for days Rajiv was under attack for behaving arrogantly and insensitively,” Gandhi writes in her memoir.
“I used to read the newspapers regularly and get upset if I came across some adverse comment or editorial about him or his government. Often he would explain that the published report was distorted, different from what had really happened. On this occasion, when I questioned him, he said, ‘I knew the moment I’d spoken that I’d made a blunder. I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth’,” she adds.
An Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1953 batch, Venkateswaran became the Foreign Secretary on April 1, 1986. A year later, in the 35th year of an illustrious diplomatic career, he would face an ignominious exit. “You’ll soon be talking to a new foreign secretary,” Rajiv Gandhi told a Pakistani journalist when asked about contradictory statements by the Prime Minister and his foreign secretary. Venkateswaran had said the Prime Minister would be visiting Pakistan, but the latter denied any such plan. Venkateswaran was at the press conference when the Prime Minister snubbed him. He sent in his resignation letter immediately.
Rahul, Priyanka did not want Sonia to become prime minister
Nov 10, 2026: The Indian Express
For decades, Sonia Gandhi has remained an intensely private figure at the heart of one of India’s most public families, her life shaped by love, extraordinary privilege, devastating loss and the weight of public expectation. In Belonging: A Journey of Love, published by HarperCollins India, she steps out from behind the many narratives others have constructed around her to tell her own story. It is a journey that begins far from India, in a small Italian town, and culminates in New Delhi, India’s power centre. It is also the story of the tragedies that would irrevocably alter the course of her life and plunge her into an unexpected political life. In this exclusive excerpt to The Indian Express, Gandhi writes of that defining moment when she resisted her party’s call to become the Prime Minister and what shaped her decision:
Some months before the election, my children and I had discussed the issue of my possible prime ministership. One of them asked me straight out whether I would accept the post, just in case our party pulled off a victory. “Absolutely not!” I’d said, almost indignantly. “Are you sure?” they pressed me. “I’m very clear,” I said emphatically. Neither Rahul nor Priyanka felt that I should become prime minister. They’d lived through the trauma of their grandmother’s assassination and the brutal murder of their father. In their minds, holding that office was intrinsically linked with heightened danger. They looked relieved and I, too, felt lighter, having said my views out loud on the question for the first time. And there the matter rested. I never spoke of it to anyone else. Throughout the election, I’d give a noncommittal answer whenever I was asked this question in public. We were in a battle for our survival and I had to keep my party together, to face our foes head-on as a cohesive team. It wasn’t an option to allow a leadership struggle to arise between the contenders in our party. I kept my views firmly to myself, not even confiding in my closest colleagues. I just knew instinctively that the person to carry forward the legacy of past Congress governments would have to be someone with long experience in government and an impeccable record of integrity.
Years ago, when I took the first step of the journey that had brought me to this point, I knew in my heart what my husband and my mother-in-law would have expected of me. I had felt an inner call of duty towards them and all that they had fought for throughout their lives. But now I was at sea; I had to search within my troubled self for an answer. One part of me rejected the idea completely, the other part was calling on my sense of obligation—towards the party workers who’d be hurt and disappointed by my refusal, but also to the people who’d given us their vote. My emotions were changing, moment to moment. One minute I was clear, the next, I was torn.
A meeting had been fixed with the leaders of the alliance. They were to come to my house the next afternoon. “We’ll convince her,” they’d assured my colleagues. When I look back at those moments, they take on their own pace, as they unspool in time.
Like a movie in slow motion, the scenes I witnessed move through my mind’s eye. A meeting is going on with some of the leaders of the alliance in Rajiv’s conference room at the far end of my house. They’ve been talking in turns for over an hour, urging me to agree to their proposal, while I listen silently. As the discussion comes to an end, they look towards me for a response. I muster up as much courage as I can and I say my piece.
There is an uproar amongst them, they stand up and move towards me. I, too, stand up. They physically surround me. “We will not accept this,” one of them says. “You cannot take this decision, Madam,” says another. Their tone is forceful, almost aggressive. “We will not take no for an answer.” I am shaken. I feel overpowered. “Theek hai,” (“All right,”), I mumble almost inaudibly. The assembled leaders don’t even wait for me to finish my sentence, they begin to congratulate me, one by one.
“She has agreed, she has agreed,” someone says. I just stand there, numb, unable to say anything further. The leaders depart, satisfied.
“You said yes?” thundered Rahul. “They wouldn’t listen to me,” I replied, “I don’t want to do it, you know I don’t. I was being pressurised.” “Pressurised? You are being pressurised?” he demanded. “What about us?” He stormed off, his face clouded with anger. “Look, Ma, you’ve always been clear about this,” Priyanka said. “Don’t get forced into it. Do what you’ve decided to do. We’re both here to help you handle it.” Her eyes were red, and I also felt like crying. What had I done? As I stood in the half-light of the corridor at the threshold of my bedroom, the feeling of something dark looming over us overcame me.
An instinct kept warning me that my actions would have far-reaching consequences, not just for my party but for India. What we needed was firm and able governance, to steer India away from divisive politics. More than anything else, we needed development and progress. My entry into politics had been driven by the conviction that the BJP, propelled by the R S S and its many fanatical wings, would encourage strife between communities and subvert the Constitution if they came to power.
I knew very well that the noise being made now by them, and the propaganda they had drummed up through the election campaign, wouldn’t abate if I accepted. The BJP and its allies would for certain use my “foreign origin” as an issue, they would stir up emotions and create havoc that would subsume every other good—of the past, and of the coming years. How could I agree to holding the office of prime minister knowing it could wound my country, the country that I loved? No, never! Night was drawing to a close. It had been a long night, unburdening myself of the thoughts and feelings that had been agitating me. Priyanka and Robert left for their home. Suman and Manju went to sleep in the guest room. Rahul was in his room.
I woke up in a few hours, went straight to my son’s room, and knocked on the door. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to stick to my stand,” I told him. He stepped up to me and with his arms around me said, “It’s the right decision.” I felt at peace for the first time since the election results had been declared. No one would be able to sway me now from my purpose.
I enter the hall to thunderous applause. The members of Parliament stand up in their places, thumping their palms on the wooden ledges in front of them. I find my place at the centre of the long table for the leaders of the party and remain standing till someone gestures for them to stop, and we all take our seats.
One of them reads out a speech imploring me once again to accept the post. I feel dismayed, having visualised this meeting differently. I thought I’d simply read out my speech and nominate Dr. Manmohan Singh. But here I am now, looking over the heads of all my parliamentary colleagues as, one by one, more speeches follow, each one outdoing the other in attempting to persuade me to change my resolve. I’m moved by their sentiments, but the last few days of deliberation have given me the clarity I needed. I know that the decision I have taken is one I truly own.
I am called to the lectern and as I rise to walk towards it, applause echoes through the assembly and everyone stands up once more. I pull out my piece of paper and put my glasses on, then an eerie silence falls over us all. I can hear my breath above the whirring of the fans. I look up at my children sitting in the front row, Priyanka catches my eye and smiles at me reassuringly. I begin to read out my speech:
“Throughout these past six years that I have been in politics, one thing has been clear to me. And that is, as I have often stated, that the post of prime minister is not my aim.
“I was always certain that if ever I found myself in the position that I am in today, I would follow my own inner voice. Today that voice tells me I must humbly decline this post.”
As I utter these words, pandemonium erupts. My colleagues leave their seats and surround the lectern. “No, no, no!” they shout, some gesticulating wildly. I notice one of my colleagues has begun to cry, another follows. I stop my speech halfway feeling faint, unable to breathe. I try to retreat from the podium, but there are people all around me, and I begin to feel distraught.
One of my colleagues holds my arm and escorts me out of the hall for a reprieve. My children follow me out. They stand with me for a few moments, then I re-enter the hall. I step up to the lectern to resume my address to the assembly:
“You have unanimously elected me your leader. In doing so, you have reposed your faith in me. It is this faith that has placed me under tremendous pressure to reconsider my decision.
“Yet I must abide by the principles which have guided me all along.
“Power in itself has never attracted me, nor has position been my goal.
“My aim has always been to defend the secular foundation of our nation and the poor of our country—the creed sacred to Indiraji and Rajivji.
“We have moved forward a significant step towards this goal. We have waged a successful battle. But we have not won the war. That is a long and arduous struggle, and I will continue it with full determination.
“. . . But I appeal to you to understand the force of my conviction. I request you to accept my decision and to recognize that I will not reverse it.
“Our foremost responsibility at this critical time is to provide India with a secular government that is strong and stable.
“Friends, you have given me your generous support, you have struggled against all odds with me. As one of you and as president of the Congress Party, I pledge myself to work with you and for the country. My resolve will in fact be all the more firm, to fight for our principles, for our vision, and for our ideals.”
Now they listen to me somewhat calmly, though some of them still shout out their protests; I ask the assembled MPs to let me designate my successor, and when they agree, I call out the name of Dr. Manmohan Singh. I step down from heading the Congress Parliamentary Party and Dr. Singh is nominated as its leader. Once again applause erupts, all of them stand up, some of them shout slogans, some have tears running down their faces. My children stand up too. I notice that they, too, are clapping. I collect my papers from the lectern and walk away. The ordeal is finally over.
India is her home
Nov 8, 2026: The Indian Express
Sonia Gandhi‘s entry into Indian politics was neither planned nor driven by political ambition. For years, she remained content with a private life alongside her husband, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, even as she became part of one of India’s most powerful political families.
But Rajiv’s assassination in 1991, seven years after the killing of her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, would eventually change the course of her life, drawing her into the leadership of the Congress.
In an interview with The Guardian, published ahead of the release of her memoir ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, the 79-year-old Congress veteran spoke about meeting Rajiv in Cambridge, her relationship with Indira Gandhi, the personal tragedies that shaped her life and the circumstances that eventually led her to take charge of the Congress. ‘It was a coup de foudre’
Recalling her first meeting with Rajiv in the 1960s, when she was 18 and studying at a language school in Cambridge, Sonia described it as an instant attraction. The two met at a Greek restaurant, she said in the interview.
“It was a coup de foudre,” she told The Guardian, using the French expression for love at first sight. She recalled being drawn to Rajiv not merely because of his looks but also because of what she felt his eyes revealed about his personality. She described him as loving, comforting and caring.
At the time, Sonia said, she had no idea that the young man she had fallen in love with was the grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and the son of Indira Gandhi, who would go on to become the country’s first woman prime minister.
Sonia moved to India in 1968. The couple initially lived with Indira Gandhi, who was then serving as prime minister. Recalling her relationship with her mother-in-law, Sonia told The Guardian that she was initially intimidated by Indira’s formidable public persona.
However, she said the picture of Indira at home was different from the one often presented in newspapers. “In the newspapers she was portrayed as tough or harsh, but at home she was just like any other mother,” Sonia said.
‘Indira Gandhi was a democrat at heart’: Sonia
She also recalled how Indira had once confided in her about being frightened when she first became prime minister. While acknowledging that her mother-in-law could have a temper, Sonia said she had seen the pressure and loneliness that came with the office. She recalled watching Indira work day and night, constantly facing attacks and political pressure.
“I always feel that Mrs Gandhi was a democrat at heart,” Sonia told The Guardian, while talking about the Emergency imposed in 1975. She said she believed Indira herself had eventually become uncomfortable with the decision, adding that the experience must have weighed heavily on her.
For several years, Sonia’s life with Rajiv remained largely removed from the political sphere. Rajiv was working as a commercial airline pilot, and the couple raised their two children, Rahul and Priyanka, while Sonia gradually adapted to life in India.
That changed in October 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards at her residence in New Delhi. Sonia recalled rushing to the spot after hearing gunshots and finding her mother-in-law lying in a pool of blood.
In her account to The Guardian, Sonia described holding Indira’s bleeding body as she was rushed to hospital. She said she realised during the journey that her mother-in-law was no longer responding to her questions and feared that she had already died.
When Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister
The tragedy also brought an unexpected political responsibility for Rajiv. Sonia recalled that while Indira’s body was still at the hospital, Rajiv informed her that he had been asked to take over as prime minister. She had pleaded with him to stay away from politics, describing the moment as a “knife going into my heart”.
Rajiv, however, took over the leadership of the government following his mother’s assassination. Sonia told the British publication that the family was subsequently consumed by fear, with security becoming a constant presence in their lives and their children losing much of the freedom they had previously enjoyed.
She said she was perpetually anxious whenever Rajiv returned late from an engagement. Her overriding fear, she told the interviewer, was that he would be killed next.
That fear became reality on May 21, 1991, when Rajiv was assassinated by a suicide bomber belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during an election campaign in Tamil Nadu.
Recalling the aftermath, Sonia struggled to describe how she continued living after his death.
Despite her sister urging her to return to Italy, Sonia said leaving India was never an option. “India was my home, my children’s home,” she said.
The assassination left her devastated. Her daughter Priyanka, who was present during the interview, recalled how Sonia would spend long periods sitting in darkness, listening to Mozart’s Requiem. Sonia also spoke of the anger and grief she experienced, struggling to come to terms with the fact that Rajiv had been taken away from her.
From reluctance to Congress president
Sonia remained away from active politics for several years after Rajiv’s assassination. However, as the Congress faced a leadership crisis and the possibility of fragmentation, pressure mounted on her to step in and revive the party.
She eventually agreed to become Congress president in 1998, a decision she told The Guardian was driven by a sense of duty towards her late husband rather than any personal political ambition.
The transition was far from easy. Sonia had to overcome her natural shyness and address political audiences in Hindi, which was her third language. She also had to contend with a political environment she had long regarded with suspicion.
Despite her initial reluctance, she went on to lead the Congress to its electoral victory in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. The party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) subsequently formed the government, but Sonia declined to become prime minister, a decision that surprised political observers.
“It was clear in my mind I would never do it,” she told The Guardian. “It was just not me,” she added.
She instead remained at the helm of the Congress and the UPA, becoming the longest-serving president in the party’s history before stepping down in 2017, when Rahul Gandhi succeeded her.
Sonia’s memoir, scheduled for release on November 10, revisits her journey from Italy to India and the personal experiences that shaped her public life.
Pranab Mukherjee as PM?
Ritu Sarin, Nov 11, 2026: The Indian Express
The late Pranab Mukherjee, former President and a Congress veteran, once dropped a big hint about his Prime Ministerial ambitions and suggested a “change at the top” during a chat with then-UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. This was in 2010, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh firmly in the saddle in the UPA government’s second term. Gandhi has written about this conversation in her memoir, ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, published by HarperCollins India.
Mukherjee, Gandhi has written, had developed “serious differences” with then Finance Minister P Chidambaram. “…and on one occasion, in 2010, I think, after expressing his frustration, he shocked me with the suggestion that perhaps it was time for a change at the top, which I understood as a hint of his long-held desire to become prime minister,” she wrote.
“I gently changed the subject, and though he may have been disappointed, he never made me feel he held it against me. Our party did nominate him in 2012 as the UPA candidate for president, the highest office in our republic, and he was elected. I often called on him, mostly just to converse with the erudite and knowledgeable politician that he always remained,” Gandhi added.
Pranab Mukherjee served as President from 2012 to 2017. He died in 2020. His years in Rashtrapati Bhavan saw the UPA being voted out of power and the NDA forming the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. President Mukherjee also shared a warm rapport with Prime Minister Modi, the latter describing him as a father figure and mentor.
Sonia Gandhi trashed allegations
Gandhi also trashed allegations that she sent for files from the Prime Minister’s Office, interfered with administrative matters, and made key appointments. “Though I had been the subject of worse accusations over the years, the fabrication that distressed me most was that I was looking into official – something improper for anyone outside the government,” she wrote.
She wrote that there was an “unspoken division of responsibility between the prime minister and me, one that worked smoothly: the government under Dr. Manmohan Singh, and the party under me”. “A core group met weekly with the prime minister to ensure coordination between the two. Its other members were Pranab Mukherjee, who had been a minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet in the ’70s; the politically insightful Arjun Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh; A. K. Antony, a former chief minister of Kerala; and Ahmed Patel,” she wrote.
Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter reacts
In a response on X, Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter and former Congress leader Sharmistha questioned if it is a “crime to be ambitious”. “What’s there to get ‘shocked’ about? Is it a crime to be ambitious, especially when that ‘ambition’ was supported by decades of experience in politics & governance, hard work & a brilliant mind? Once, when asked by me whether he wanted to become PM, he very candidly answered that ‘any politician worth his salt has this ambition,'” she said in her post.
“My father came from a very humble background. Whatever he achieved in his life was through sheer merit & hard-work. There was no-one to serve him positions, including PM-ship, on a platter due to dynastic entitlements. If a well-deserving person harbours ambition to become Prime Minister, what’s wrong in that, unless Sonia ji was ‘shocked’ by the fact that anyone outside Gandhi-Nehru family could even dare to nurture such an ambition & furthermore dared to ‘hint’ it to her?”
“In this same context, I read that she said she felt ‘he never held it against me’. From what I read in his diaries & whatever conversation he had with me, I would like to reassure her that he DID NOT hold it against her or anyone else. He was a pragmatic person with deep understanding. He understood her reasons & insecurities that all human beings are prone to,” she wrote.
With Mr Narendra Modi
Nov 10, 2026: The Indian Express
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has said she and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are pursuing sharply different visions of India. She also said that PM Modi tends to avoid eye contact when the two leaders meet. In her memoir, ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, she described their political differences as ideological rather than personal, according to an excerpt published by news agency PTI.
Gandhi writes that she has had “practically no real contact” with Modi beyond formal greetings and occasional brief exchanges. Published by HarperCollins India, the book went on sale.
Gandhi says their encounters largely take place at semi-official events, including the customary gathering of major party leaders in the Speaker’s chamber after each Parliament session. They exchange a formal namaste, she writes, but Modi tends to “avoid eye contact” when they meet.
She describes PM Modi as a leader who “worked his way to power within the R S S from an underprivileged world”. She, however, adds that “his origins may not have been as humble as his PR team has made out in marketing his image”.
“Narendra Damodardas Modi has been the Prime Minister of India for more than twelve years as of this writing and is now in his third term in office. To this day, I’ve had practically no real contact with him. We meet at semi-official gatherings — for instance, at the end of every Parliament session, when leaders of the major parties customarily gather at the Speaker’s chamber,” she writes.
“It’s a very small room, and usually many people are present, but when he comes face-to-face with me, we greet each other with a formal namaste. This is different from the past, when leaders across party divides would treat one another with cordiality. He tends to look away, avoiding eye contact,” Gandhi adds in the memoir.
According to Gandhi, Modi has occasionally enquired about her health after she returned from hospital, asking whether she was all right. Beyond such conversations and birthday and New Year greetings, she says, they have barely spoken.
Different ideas of India
Gandhi traces their political differences to the contrasting influences that shaped their understanding of the country. Her own outlook, she writes, developed through her family’s public service and belief in an India that accommodated different communities, cultures, languages and religions, with liberty and equality as its foundation.
Modi’s worldview, in her assessment, emerged from his upbringing and the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. She characterises it as one that places his faith and culture above others and gives primacy to hierarchy, order, and control. “He was fighting for his vision of India, and I for mine: an India against hegemony, an India that stands for inclusiveness, secularism, and social justice. It wasn’t personal,” she writes.
Although their routes into politics differed considerably, Gandhi says, she could understand some of Modi’s unease with the political elite.
She recalls feeling uncomfortable during discussions in Delhi drawing rooms, where views often seemed disconnected from the hardship she had encountered in her constituency and during journeys across India. The struggle for survival she had witnessed, she writes, appeared beyond the understanding of those privileged circles.
Gandhi also questions whether Modi’s background was as modest as the image promoted by his public relations team. Nevertheless, she acknowledges that he rose through the R S S from an underprivileged environment.
Sonia Gandhi on Modi targeting Nehru
The memoir also sets out Gandhi’s criticism of Modi’s parliamentary speeches and the BJP’s hostility towards Congress. “When speaking in Parliament, he [Modi], at times, uses the same coarse language he employs in addressing a public rally. Much of the time he derides the opposition in what can only be termed a tirade. Jawaharlal Nehru, our first prime minister, is a particular target of his party’s hostility, for having set our country on a democratic and secular course,” she says.
The Sangh Parivar internet sites are full of malicious abuse and falsehoods against Nehru, she writes.
Gandhi describes the BJP’s goal of a “Congress-free India” as an attempt to remove not only the party but also its policies and ideology.
She attributes this hostility to Modi’s ideological conditioning within the R S S, which, in her view, has turned an exclusionary and rigid interpretation of Hinduism into a political programme.
(With inputs from PTI)
The death of Rajiv Gandhi
Nov 10, 2026: The Indian Express
Two months before former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was killed in an explosion, his son and now the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, had made eerie premonition regarding his death.
“If something isn’t done about Pa’s security, I know I’ll soon have to come back for his funeral,” Rahul told his mother, Sonia Gandhi, while he was on a tour with father.
The revelations are now part of Sonia Gandhi’s newly released book “Belonging: A Journey of Love”. News agency PTI shared excerpts from the book.
Rajiv Gandhi died on May 21, 1991 after a woman on the pretense of offering him a garland detonated the explosives strapped to her body, killing him and 14 others in his vicinity.
The incident, one filled with profound loss for the Gandhi family, finds a detailed mention in Sonia Gandhi’s memoir.
She writes in the book that the final attempt on Rajiv’s life came a little over a year after his SPG cover was withdrawn by the then V P Singh government despite a committee deciding that the Special Protection Group cover must continue “unless a change was warranted by some fresh threat assessment.”
“No such review was ever undertaken. The very next month the SPG cover was withdrawn by the V. P. Singh government. A specialised force in a whole system trained to provide proximate security was replaced with the local police,” Gandhi writes, according to the news agency.
Recalling the day, Sonia Gandhi said the day was like any other, while she found a “sense of comfort” on Rajiv’s side of the bed whenever he was away. Her daughter, Priyanka, was getting ready in her room to go to a friend’s birthday party and Rahul was in college in the US.
“Suddenly I heard footsteps running down the corridor towards my room. No one else was in the house; it could only have been her. I thought I heard her stumbling, then the footsteps stopped abruptly at my door. I shut my book and listened, feeling uneasy,” the book read.
“When the door opened, she entered slowly, her steps deliberate. She seemed to be stilling herself, moving with forced calm as she walked up to me. But her breath was fast and shallow, the colour had drained from her face, and her eyes were darker than I had ever seen them before,” she adds in the book.
It was then Priyanka informed her mother about a phone call regarding a bomb explosion with feared casualties in Madras, where Rajiv was campaigning. She urging her to get ready to go to Madras, however, the words were not making any sense to Sonia.
“I couldn’t understand what she was saying, she was speaking fast, and nothing was making sense. Why Madras? Was Rajiv in Madras? What bomb? It was less her words than the dread in Priyanka’s voice that froze me into realising what she really meant. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up, she stepped forward and held me in her arms. I could feel her heart thumping wildly against my chest,” Gandhi writes in the book, according to PTI.
She then crumpled Priyanka’s arms and repeatedly cried, “I should have gone with him.”
She then dialled her close aide Vincent George and asked, ‘Just tell me, is it true?’ His responded, “Yes it is true, Sahab is no more.”
“I felt as if my world had gone dark, and that darkness had swallowed me whole,” Gandhi said, adding that many details around the time remain “sketchy”. She remembered staff members sobbing, wailing in the corridor and a daughter who was “broken but composed”.
Talking of Priyanka Gandhi, she said, “Rajiv’s beloved daughter was broken but composed. Priyanka hadn’t cried in front of me, not once. She took charge of everything, darting between her room and Rahul’s. From there she could shield her mother from hearing anything that might add to her agony.”
Priyanka Gandhi was the one making phone calls and making the arrangements to go to Chennai. However, Rajiv’s last remains were flown back to AIIMS in Delhi. Sonia felt a strong urge to see Rajiv as she was reminded of “a moment, a word, a loving gaze” and remembered that he had donated his eyes, just like his mother.
Meanwhile, Rahul, who was in US, was reached at last. “A friend had called him to say, ‘Buri khabar hai’ (It’s bad news), and he’d replied immediately, ‘Papa is dead, isn’t he?,” Gandhi recalls.
She said Rahul Gandhi was supposed to have been in Sriperumbudur besides Rajiv had there not been a change in his schedule. Following his father’s death, he stands motionless by his father’s remains.
Her battle with cancer
Ritu Sarin, Nov 10, 2026: The Indian Express
In a deeply personal account in her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, Sonia Gandhi has written about the health issues she endured and for the first time, revealed that, in 2010, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and later learnt the malignancy had spread to the pancreas. She underwent two surgeries conducted by world-famous oncologists, the first in Milan, Italy and the second in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
When the malignancy was first detected in 2010, she writes that while she had full confidence in the doctors of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, the media frenzy that would be created in India was one reason she decided to go abroad. She writes, “I felt shaken and worried, there was no time to lose, my children and I were told, and my mind began to race to a possible scary outcome…I wasn’t keen to be at the centre of a media frenzy that would have inevitably accompanied a surgery in Delhi… True I had become a public figure, but did that mean I wasn’t to be allowed even a modicum of privacy?”
After the first surgery, Sonia recalls how the surgeon, Dr Veronesi, immediately informed her that everything had gone on well and there were no residues. Her account: “He had removed two tumours, including a non-suspicious one to be on the safe side, and conducted an intra-operative radiation to spare me five weeks of radiotherapy.”
The memoir also contains details of how just one year later, in 2011, during routine follow-up tests, a growth was detected in the pancreas. “This came as a shock to me and the children—we immediately thought it was a flare-up of the earlier problem. Following many consultations, my doctors felt I needed immediate surgery… I was agitated and worried about the operation despite everyone’s assurances, since the actual extent of the disease could only be determined after the surgery. My mind began to dwell on a worst-case scenario. What if it turned out to be a metastatic growth? Would I come through it?…”
She later narrates how the second surgery in Rotterdam was performed by Dr Casper van Eijck and after it, Dr van Eijck explained to her that she had been fortunate since the tumour was found to be in a preliminary stage, having been detected early. She stayed in the hospital for four weeks, with mostly Priyanka by her side. After her return to Delhi, she recalls how she found herself weakened by the long second surgery she had endured, but also how fortunate she was that both times, she had been saved from undergoing chemotherapy.
