"Absolutely Not" To "Theek Hai" To Firm "No": Sonia Gandhi On PM Post Tussle

Sonia Gandhi had told her children months before the 2004 Lok Sabha election that she would "absolutely not" become prime minister. Yet, confronted by alliance leaders who refused to accept her decision after the Congress-led coalition's victory, she briefly surrendered with a barely audible "theek hai".

Hours later, after an angry intervention by her son Rahul Gandhi and a private struggle over duty, danger and belonging, she returned to her original position. She would not take the job.

Sonia Gandhi has described for the first time the turmoil behind one of India's most consequential political decisions in her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, released today.

Her memoir shows she refused the possibility of heading the top post after a lot of thought and that she had taken a very complicated decision. It had pressure from alliance partners, opposition from her children and a night during which she weighed her responsibility to the Congress against a decision she believed she had already made.

Months before the election in 2004, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi had asked their mother whether she would accept the post if the Congress returned to power.

"Absolutely not!" she replied, according to the memoir. When they asked if she was certain, she said, "I'm very clear."

Neither child wanted her to become prime minister as both linked the office with the assassinations that had shaped their family - former prime minister Indira Gandhi was killed in 1984 and her son Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

"They'd lived through the trauma of their grandmother's assassination and the brutal murder of their father," Sonia Gandhi said. In their minds, the office was inseparable from an increased threat to her life, she said.

While she did not show any commitment in public during the election campaign, the question became immediate only after the Congress emerged as the principal party in the coalition that would form the government.

At 10 Janpath, alliance leaders gathered in Rajiv Gandhi's conference room and urged her to accept the prime ministership while Sonia Gandhi listened before telling them she would not do so, according to her memoir. Then the leaders stood up and insisted that she could not refuse.

"We will not accept this," one of them said. "You cannot take this decision, madam," said another. "We will not take no for an answer."

Sonia Gandhi wrote that she felt shaken and overpowered. "Theek hai," she mumbled, after which the leaders began congratulating her before she had finished speaking.

Priyanka Gandhi, waiting outside the room, heard what had happened and rushed to find her brother after which the two then confronted their mother. "You said yes?" Rahul Gandhi demanded.

READ | "Have No Real Contact With Him, He Avoids Eye Contact": Sonia Gandhi On PM Modi

"They wouldn't listen to me," his mother said. "I don't want to do it, you know I don't. I was being pressurised."

"Pressurised? You are being pressurised?" Rahul Gandhi responded. "What about us?"

Priyanka Gandhi asked her not to submit to the pressure. "You've always been clear about this," she told her mother. "Don't get forced into it. Do what you've decided to do."

Sonia Gandhi then withdrew to her bedroom and lay on Rajiv Gandhi's side of the bed. Her memoir records the competing arguments that followed.

While a voice questioned how a woman born and raised in Italy could lead a nation of more than a billion people, another said India had become her country and accepted her after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and placed its faith in her party.

She also considered the expectations of Congress workers who had campaigned for the party and could see her refusal as an abandonment of responsibility. "My emotions were changing, moment to moment. One minute I was clear, the next, I was torn," she said.

As she drifted to sleep from exhaustion, the uncertainty lifted. "Sonia, be true to yourself," she recalled telling herself. "You've always known it. Just leave it!"

A few hours later, she went to Rahul Gandhi's room and told him she would stand by her original decision. "It's the right decision," he said, embracing her.

The battle moved next to parliament where Congress MPs repeatedly urged her to reconsider, while Sonia Gandhi told them that her "inner voice" did not permit her to accept the post.

The announcement caused an uproar and she briefly left the meeting before returning to seek permission to name another leader. She then proposed the name of Manmohan Singh.

"I step down from heading the Congress Parliamentary Party and Dr. Singh is nominated as its leader," she wrote.