Adding a twist to his account of the circumstances that led Congress president Sonia Gandhi to turn down the post of Prime Minister in May 2004, her estranged friend and former party colleague Natwar Singh said he is not sure whether Rahul Gandhi’s intervention was the only reason.
“I cannot say that. I do not know,” Mr. Singh told The Hindu in an exclusive interview when asked whether Ms. Gandhi would have become the PM if Mr. Gandhi had no objection. In his autobiography One Life is Not Enough , Mr. Singh has written that Mr. Gandhi “was the reason for her not becoming PM.”
Ms. Gandhi had said she had followd her “inner voice.” Mr. Singh said it was from Priyanka Gandhi Vadra that he heard Mr. Gandhi was objecting to his mother becoming the PM. “Rahul was not there, but Priyanka spoke about his opposition.” Asked what was Ms. Vadra’s opinion, he said: “We were there for five or six minutes. I don’t know what her opinion was.”
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On his exit from the Union Cabinet in 2005, Mr. Singh said it was a conspiracy by the “U.S. establishment”opposed to him. “Manmohan himself told me that the U.S. did not like me as External Affairs Minister,” Mr. Singh said.