Sonia Gandhi talks about ‘end of innings’: The story of how the reluctant politician turned into Congress power centre

Her party was then quick to clarify that Sonia was talking about the end of her tenure as the party president, and not about bowing out from politics.

It was around 25 years ago that Sonia Gandhi first became the Congress president. When the reluctant politician first took over the reins of the party in 1998, the Congress was in disarray — two of its ‘natural’ leaders assassinated within a decade, fresh from a Lok Sabha election loss, and facing infighting and defections. It was in power in just three states: Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Mizoram. Under her, the party would go on to win two General Elections back to back and rule as many as 16 states at one point in the 2000s, before embarking on the ignominious slide since 2014.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi with his wife Sonia Gandhi receiving President of Maldives Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Mrs. Gayoom on their arrival in Delhi airport on December 7, 1988. Express archive photo

How did Sonia Gandhi, who had repeatedly insisted she would not join politics and had even pleaded with her husband Rajiv Gandhi to not do so, end up spending her life as the power centre of the Congress? That story begins just after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, all of 46, killed after spending less than a decade in active politics.

Early life and marriage to Rajiv Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi was born on December 9, 1946, to Stefano Maino, a building mason, and Paola Maino. She grew up Roman Catholic in Orbassano, a small town in Italy, with her sisters Nadia and Anoushka. In 1964, she went to Cambridge in England to study English, where she came across Rajiv Gandhi, who was studying engineering. The two fell in love, and in 1968, got married in a Hindu ceremony. Sonia then moved into the household of her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, entering the world of limelight, intrigue, and often, violence, that was India’s politics.

Sonia Gandhi kept a low profile, slowly learning Hindi, giving up her skirts for saaris, assimilating into the new world she found herself in. Her two children, Rahul and Priyanka, were born in 1970 and 1972.

Sonia Maino married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968, in a Hindu ceremony. (Express archive photo)

When Indira Gandhi was shot dead in 1984, Sonia was among the first to come rushing to the scene; the former Prime Minister of India was driven to the hospital with her head in Sonia’s lap. The killing of Indira meant Sonia’s husband Rajiv, a pilot, would now take up her position in politics. Sonia opposed this bitterly, but gave in to the inevitable. Then in 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

Initial reluctance to join politics

Sonia Gandhi not just refused to succeed to her husband’s role in the party, she even refused to campaign for the Congress party in the 1996 elections, though she had campaigned for Rajiv earlier (including, notably in 1984, against sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi in Amethi).

However, efforts had been on within the faction-riddled Congress to bring a Gandhi to the top post. An India Today report from August 1991, barely three months after Rajiv’s assassination, says, “…what is now being played out at Number 10 [her 10, Janpath residence] is politics all the way. And Sonia is caught in its vortex. Whether Rajiv’s widow likes it or not she has become the focal point in a power struggle within the ruling party in which party bosses through a series of interlocking alliances and rival groupings are jockeying for influence and control.”

Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi with Sanjay Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. Sanjay was widely expected to be his mother’s successor, with the elder son and daughter-in-law staying away from politics. (Express archive photo)

The article goes on to say that Congress satraps believed Sonia would be a “neutral” choice of party president acceptable to all, and the sympathy the public at large felt for her would help the party electorally. Thus, they kept up a series of high-profile condolence visits to her house, which served the dual purpose of keeping her in the news while also adding to the “mystique” of the media-shy bereaved woman.

Change of stand

Then in December 1997, Sonia suddenly reversed her stand, saying she would canvass for the Congress in the parliamentary polls due in March 1998. What prompted the change of heart? Political observers believe it was a combination of many factors, including ensuring the name of her husband was not “besmirched”, alarm at the state of the Congress party, and the need to guarantee her son’s future in the party and the nation’s politics. However, publicly, she gave one reason.

As Delhi-based political commentator Inder Malhotra wrote for The Indian Express in 2015, “From every podium she proclaimed that her reason for jumping into the electoral fray was to “save India from the cynicism driving those who use religion and caste to divide the country”. Her target was clearly the BJP.”

Sonia became a member of the Congress party only in 1997 — at the plenary in Calcutta. In the 1998 polls, Congress won 141 seats, one more than the last time’s tally. Within months, Sonia was elected Congress president, Sitaram Kesri removed in a bloodless coup.

Not everyone was happy with her advancement though. In May 1999, three senior leaders, Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma, and Tariq Anwar, raised the issue of Sonia’s foreign origins. Sonia promptly offered to step away, there was a flood of support for her, and the row ended with the formation of the Nationalist Congress Party and the cementing of Sonia’s position.

In the 1999 elections, Sonia finally entered the electoral fray, winning from both Amethi in UP and Bellary in Karnataka, where she defeated BJP leader Sushma Swaraj.

While Sonia’s initial foray into the political arena saw her read out speeches in a heavily accented Hindi, over the years, she eventually came to dominate not just the Congress, but the Indian political scene.

When she was elected Congress president in April 1988, she said in her first address, “I am no saviour as some of you might want to believe. We must be realistic in our expectations. The revival of our party is going to be a long-drawn process, involving sincere hard work, from each and every one of us.”

Sonia went on to exceed most expectations. Not the same can be said about her party, which has seen more unravellings than revivals recently.