BackSonia Gandhi says will counter Natwar Singh’s book with one of her own
In response to Singh's comments and his autobiography, Sonia says she will write her own book which will reveal 'truth'
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New Delhi: Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday hit out at former party loyalist, minister and estranged family friend Natwar Singh, saying she will write a book to counter his claims that she had unauthorized access to government files when the Congress was in power.
“I will write my own book and then you will come to know everything...the only way truth will come out is if I write... I am serious about it and I will be writing," Gandhi told reporters in Parliament House as a fresh political controversy erupted around Singh’s reported claims, made in a forthcoming autobiography.
But Gandhi said she had seen worse things, including the assassination of her husband Rajiv Gandhi and mother-in law Indira Gandhi. “I am far from getting hurt from these things. These things do not affect me," she said. “Let them continue to do this, it will not affect me... They can continue to do this if they so please."
Singh, who was forced to resign from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2008 after being accused in the Iraq oil-for-food scam, claimed that important government files were taken to Gandhi for approval.
Earlier this year, Sanjaya Baru, former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s media adviser alleged in his book The Accidental Prime Minister that Gandhi misused her powers to access government records.
Manmohan Singh denied the claim.
Natwar Singh’s forthcoming book, One Life is Not Enough: An Autobiography, claims that no one questioned Gandhi’s access to government files as she was the “foremost" leader. The book also claims that it was not Gandhi’s “inner voice" which prevented her from taking up the PM’s post in 2004— as she has claimed—but opposition from her son Rahul Gandhi, now Congress party’s vice-president, who feared she would be killed, just like his father and grandmother if she accepted the post.
The Congress party, which is reeling under its worst electoral defeat in the recently concluded general elections, rubbished Natwar Singh’s claims saying it was an attempt to ensure “better sales and free publicity" for the book.
On Thursday, Manmohan Singh too rejected the claims made in the book, telling the Press Trust of India, “This is their way of trying to market their product. Private conversation should not be made public for capital gains."
Political experts, however, feel that the timing of the book may politically hurt the Congress party when it is trying to demand the post of the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha.
“These developments coming at the time when the Congress party is demanding the LoP post in the House, surely belittles their leadership. While the accessing of government files by Sonia Gandhi has come up before also, the timing of it may hurt the party," said N. Bhaskara Rao, a New Delhi-based political analyst who has observed the party for over two decades.
“What is in fact a new revelation and out to the public for the first time is Rahul Gandhi asking her to deny the PM’s post, but that too has no real political implication. It is a 10-year-old development," Rao added.
PTI contributed to this story.
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