Birthday greetings pour in for Sonia Gandhi as associates recall facets not known to many

Sonia Gandhi, reminds former Haryana CM and leader of the Opposition in Haryana Assembly Bhupinder Singh Hooda, would rank among the likes of Sister Nivedita, Mira Ben, Annie Besant and Nellie Sengupta, who despite their foreign origin were Indians who selflessly served people of this country. The last named was also a Congress President.

The year 2021 marks the 75th year of our independence and in a remarkable coincidence Sonia Gandhi’s 75th birthday. The longest serving President of the Indian National Congress has arguably led the party through far more difficult times than many of her illustrious predecessors. Maharashtra’s energy minister Dr Nitin Raut points to another remarkable coincidence. “December 9, 1946, was when India’s Constituent Assembly met for the first time. It was tasked with the job of preparing the Constitution of India. On this very day, a person was born in Lusiana, Italy. Who knew then that both the Constitution of India and this charismatic person would change India for the better,” he wondered this week. Sonia Gandhi has maintained a low profile, is almost self-effacing but on her 75th birthday on December 9, some of her associates recalled different facets of her personality. Here are a few of them:

Fortitude under fire

Wajahat Habibullah

Dr CK Gariyali, an IAS officer from Kashmir, then Tamil Nadu’s Special Secretary Health and Family Planning, was informed of Rajiv’s assassination. Gariyali had earlier served as the first Director of the Soauth Zone Cultural Centre at qTanjavur, which was inaugurated in 1986, by Rajiv with Sonia and Mani Shankar Aiyar by his side, in the presence of the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, MG Ramachandran, Carnatic music maestro, MS Subbulakshmi and danseuse, Dr Padma Subramanyam.

Rajiv’s body arrived at Meenambakkam airport, encased in a Fenn & Co coffin, specially ordered by Gariyali. Sonia and Priyanka had flown in to receive the body.

As Gariyali recalled later, the only words Sonia Gandhi spoke at the time were, “Where is Mr Gupta (Pradeep K Gupta was the personal security officer of Rajiv Gandhi)? How will I face Mrs Gupta if I go back without her husband?” She waited the hour and a half it took Gariyali to arrange for the necessary despatch and the return of the ambulance bearing Gupta’s body. Only after this did the mother and daughter fly back with their tragic freight to Delhi.

Rights and wrongs

Ashwani Kumar

In one of my conversations with her, she had said, “We can only win elections by doing what is right”. That we may have gone wrong at times does not detract from the clarity of her thought inspired by the idealist traditions of Gandhian-Nehruvian politics.

Granting a Rajya Sabha berth to a leader suffering from cancer so that the person concerned could avail of the best treatment bears eloquent testimony to her deep sense of compassion. Her commitment to perfection is seen in the smallest of gestures. Even the unwrapping of a gift becomes an art with her. I once saw her do so, ensuring that the delicate paper remained intact even after it was unwrapped. The same paper could easily have been used for the second time. The resettling of sofa cushions by her after meetings used to be a given. The understated elegant surroundings of her office lined with books are a statement about the person as much.”

The Consensus builder

Sanjay Nirupam

I had developed major differences with the Shiv Sena and decided to quit and join the Congress. I called on late Ahmed Patel, who was the political advisor of Congress President Mrs Sonia Gandhi. He was receptive but said, ‘let me speak to CP’. CP stood for Congress President. Leaders in the Congress party call her CP respectfully and fondly.

I’d never met Mrs Gandhi and had no way of anticipating her reaction to my willingness to join the party. Ahmed Bhai reverted to me after a week. He said, “Mrs Gandhi doesn’t have any objection. But she has asked me to speak to four leaders from Maharashtra Congress and take their consent.”

Who are these four leaders?” I asked. He listed them out - Vilasrao Deshmukh, then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Prabha Rau, the then Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee President, Gurudas Kamath, the then Mumbai Congress President and Sunil Dutt, against whom I had contested Lok Sabha election in 2004 and lost narrowly.

This procedure seemed clumsy to me. I asked Ahmed Bhai, “I am willing to join Congress and the party President doesn’t have any objection, then why this exercise?” “That’s how CP works,” replied Ahmed Bhai.

In the Lok Sabha I have seen her listening attentively to MPs’ speeches. I remember Shiv Sena member Anant Geete raising the issue of Mumbai’s fishermen community who were being denied Scheduled Tribe (ST) status while being classified as ST in the hilly terrains of Thane district. Why this discrimination when they both belonged to the same community, questioned Geete convincingly. Having listened to his speech carefully, Mrs. Gandhi called me and other MPs from Maharashtra present in the House and discussed the issue with us, took notes and promptly forwarded her views to the Government of Maharashtra and the minister concerned at the Centre”

Kindness in politics?

Salman Khursheed

In a gesture of faith, she sent me out to the tough terrain of UP as the UPCC President. I got a first-hand experience of her balancing act – the trust she placed in me to lead Congress out of the morass it’d descended into, with the emergence of regional caste-driven political outfits versus the expectations of a host of state leaders, who preferred conventional politics, with their personal ambitions stirred by the ground realities we began to see.

Those were the days when Narayan Dutt Tiwari and Jitendra Prasada competed against each other for ultimate control. The simmering ambitions soon surfaced with Jitendra Prasada challenging Soniaji for the presidentship of the Congress party. Inevitably I took her side, at the cost of my friendship with the challenger. I targeted the opponent in his stronghold at Shahjehanpur, with a delegate membership that exceeded his. But as the battle got heated, Soniaji intervened saying I should refrain from a whitewash. “Where did you learn this?” she asked. “I just followed him,” I responded. As will be recalled, even in UP he got less than 100 votes”

An open mind

Balasaheb Thorat

When the Shiv Sena fell out with the BJP after the 2019 Maharashtra elections, the Thackerays expressed their willingness to form a government without the BJP. I went to Baramati and called on Sharad Pawar. He had already spoken to Uddhav Thackeray and had persuaded him to take on the mantle of the Chief Minister. It, then, fell on me to get Soniaji’s approval. When I met Soniaji in Delhi on the possibility of a coalition government in Maharashtra, she waved in the direction of the wall with portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and asked, “What will they feel if we go with Shiv Sena?”

The last battle

Kumar Ketkar

Now she is fighting the last battle of her political life with Rahul and Priyanka on her side. This battle is far more vicious, venomous, vulgar and even violent. The old-style decencies, respect for political rivals, respect for democratic institutions and democratic spirit are fast evaporating. It has now become a civilisational confrontation. Sonia Gandhi is leading from the front, without giving in to the politics of hate, vendetta and calculated cruelty. Her endurance and tenacity will lead to a historic victory of the forces of civilisation over the forces of regression and Nihilism”

Ear to the ground

Sushil Kumar Shinde

During my tenure as Chief Minister of Maharashtra, I learnt of Sonia ji’s focus on the underprivileged, particularly the suppressed class of society. While I took some concrete decisions for the state, Sonia ji showed great leadership whenever the opportunity presented itself. She personally visited the homes of people affected by natural calamity in Satara and Sangli. Pursuant to the train bombing at Mumbai, she accompanied me to take stock of the precautionary measures taken by the State Home Department and get a first-hand feel of the security lapses leading to the attack and learn how it came about”

Beyond power politics

Avinash Pande

Her focus has been on empathy, not power, and serving people.

One of the most satisfying assignments I received from her was when I was included in the relief team that she rushed to Andaman-Nicobar islands following the 2004 tsunami. We stayed back for over 28 days on her instruction. Madam had also assigned me to do relief work during the Orissa floods and during the Gujarat riots earlier we set up a control room at Vadodara to supervise relief.

(This article was first published in National Herald on Sunday)