We've Sonia at Rajiv's 'request'

We’ve Sonia at Rajiv’s 'request’

By Amba Charan Vashishth

“Myself and Rajiv (Gandhi) were never interested in politics. Rajiv joined politics on the request of Indiraji, while I joined it at Rajiv’s request”.
This is what INDIA TODAY (August 13 2007 issue) quotes Congress President, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi as having said.

There is no dispute as far as the first part of the statement of both Sonia and Rajiv “never (being) interested in politics” is concerned. But it is the second part that “Rajiv joined politics on the request of Indiraji“ and me “at Rajiv’s request” that rattles the ears.

It is true that after the death of Sanjay Gandhi whom Mrs. Indira Gandhi had groomed as her political heir in preference to the ‘disinterested’ Rajiv, she did make the latter reluctantly agree to quit his Indian Airlines job as pilot and join politics as she wanted the mantle of political leadership fall on her own son and none else. But to say it was at his mother’s “request” may be too much given the Indian traditions and culture. The word “request” she used may be because of her not being that much acquainted with the Indian traditions and ethos. In India mothers do not request their sons, the former only wish or desire which need not be expressed in so many words. Sons come to understand their parents’ wish in the normal course because of the family chord of understanding. It is the sons who act to fulfil the wishes of their parents.
But her claim that she joined politics “at Rajiv’s request” looks quite incongruous.

Those who know the facts know that immediately after the unfortunate assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi refused to jump into politics join and lead the Congress Party despite the likes of Arjun Singh and others making numerous pleadings before her at 10 Janpath. If it genuinely was Rajiv’s ‘request’, nothing could have been a better tribute from her than to instantly ‘join politics’ in fulfillment of his ‘request’ and enrol as a Congress worker (leader) to accomplish the work left unfinished by Rajiv’s sudden and untimely death.

On the contrary, it was only in March 1996 (about five years after Rajiv’s death) that she ultimately relented and joined as an ordinary Congress worker. It was a different matter that immediately after that she was catapulted to the centrestage of Congress politics and became the Congress President consequent upon the then Congress President, Sitaram Kesri, having been made to make a departure most humiliating for a person of his stature.

So the question still remains: When did Rajiv “request” her to join politics?
If he did ‘request’ her in his life time, she should have given Rajiv the pleasure of acting as per his ‘request’ when he was alive. Did she have some reservations then? Further, why did she wait for five years after his death to accede to his ‘request’?

Therefore, it remains a mystery as to when did Rajiv ‘request’ her to join politics and whether her decision to join politics was genuinely prompted by Rajiv’s ‘request’.

At the time of resigning as MP as also Chairman of the National Advisory Council after some opposition parties had filed a memorandum with the President of India for her disqualification on account of her holding an office of profit, she said: 'I have stated earlier also that I am in politics and public life not for my selfish ends …I have taken a pledge to serve the people of the country and to protect secular ideals. “

To cherish and realize these high ideals, she should have joined politics much earlier and, at least, the moment Rajiv made a ‘request’ to do so. Why she didn’t is anybody’s guess! ***