Today is the birthday of former Congress President Sonia Gandhi. She turned 78 on 09 December and is now a member of Rajya Sabha. Under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, UPA got a chance to form the government twice but she refused to become the Prime Minister. Sonia Gandhi was born on 9 December 1946 in a small village called Luciana in the Veneto region of Italy. Her father Stefano Maiano named her Antonia Advis Albina Maiano. No one had thought that this girl would later become a big face of Indian politics and become the President of India's oldest party (Congress).
When Sonia saw Rajiv for the first time
Sonia reached Cambridge on 07 January 1965. Many foreign youth come here to study. They found a Greek restaurant on the same campus that also served Italian food, its name was Varsity. It was very popular among the youth of the university. Sonia started eating here regularly. Rajiv Gandhi also often used to come here with friends. It was here that Sonia saw Rajiv. He was calm, handsome and very polite. One day when Sonia was having lunch there, Rajiv came with their common friend Christian von Stiglitz. Then they were introduced to each other.
This is how the political innings started
After marrying Sonia in 1968, Rajiv brought her to India. Rajiv stayed away from politics and chose his career as an airline pilot. Rajiv Gandhi came into politics after the death of Sanjay Gandhi in 1980. Rajiv became Prime Minister after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. During this period, Sonia Gandhi maintained distance from politics and worked in the field of art conservation, but after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, Sonia Gandhi got an offer to take over the leadership of Congress, which she initially rejected.
In 1998, Sonia Gandhi took command of the Congress Party. Under his leadership, Congress won the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 and formed the UPA alliance. However, instead of accepting the post of Prime Minister, he handed over this responsibility to Manmohan Singh. In 2004, the path was clear for Sonia's coronation on arguably the most important chair in the country. Once again in 2009, he had a similar opportunity. He rejected it on both occasions and nominated Dr. Manmohan Singh in his place. This decision of Sonia surprised everyone. Dr. Manmohan Singh remained the Prime Minister for ten years but the message of the power being in the hands of the Gandhi family kept his situation miserable.
Why did Sonia refuse to become Prime Minister?
17 May 2004, the story of those tense 20 minutes
What former Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, her confidant at that time and an eyewitness to this important sequence of events, wrote in his autobiography has also been confirmed by Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Somnath Chatterjee, who were supporting Sonia at that time. Natwar Singh, while mentioning this incident in his autobiography One Life Is Not Enough, wrote that he reached 10 Janpath at around 2 pm on 17 May 2004. He was close to his family. They were sent inside. Sonia sitting on the sofa in the room was looking restless. Manmohan Singh and Priyanka were also present there. Suman Dubey also reached there and then Rahul came there. Turning to Sonia, Rahul said, “You do not have to become Prime Minister. My father was murdered. Grandmother was murdered. Will kill you too in six months.”
Rahul threatened to go to any extent
According to Natwar, Rahul threatened to go to any extent if she did not agree to his demands and gave the mother 24 hours to take her decision. A distressed Sonia had tears in her eyes when Rahul said that he would take every possible step to stop her from accepting the post of Prime Minister. These tense 15-20 minutes were a very difficult time. Manmohan Singh was completely silent. Priyanka had said that Rahul is against and he can do anything.”
Priyanka-Rahul were scared
Rahul's stubbornness had forced Sonia to reject the post of Prime Minister. Neerja Chaudhary has written in her book How Prime Ministers Decide that a few days after this incident, apart from Natwar Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who was active in Sonia's favor at that time, had also told her that Sonia's children did not want her. Accept the post of Prime Minister, because he is afraid that his life will be in danger.
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