When I will write my own book, truth will come out: Sonia Gandhi on Natwar Singh`s allegations

Zee Media Bureau/Deepak Nagpal

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday reacted to former partyman Natwar Singh`s claim that she gave up the prime ministership in 2004 not because of her “inner voice”, but because of strong opposition from her son Rahul Gandhi. Sonia told Zee News that the truth will come out when she will write a book. “When I will write my own book, then the truth will come out,” Sonia said, commenting on former external affairs minister Natwar Singh`s allegations. “What can I say when asked, are you hurt? I have seen my husband getting assassinated... my mother-in-law getting killed by bullets. Lot many people say many things about us,” she told Zee News. Singh (83), an estranged Gandhi family friend who quit the Congress in 2008 after he had to resign from the UPA-I government in 2005 in the wake of the Iraqi food-for-oil scam, has claimed that it was not Sonia`s "inner voice" that prevented her, as she had stated at the time, to take up the PM`s post Singh further claimed in an interview to a TV channel that to persuade him from not referring to this particular episode in his soon-to-be-released autobiography, the Congress president along with her daughter Priyanka Gandhi met him on May 7 at his residence but he decided to disclose the facts as they were and tell the "truth". The book is titled "One Life is Not Enough: An Autobiography". "Rahul was totally against her mother becoming Prime Minister. He said she would be killed like his father and grandmother and as a son he would not allow to become the PM. He was very adamant," Singh said, recalling a May 18, 2004 meeting where Manmohan Singh, Gandhi family friend Suman Dubey, Priyanka and he were present. Manmohan Singh later went on to become the prime minister. Rahul`s opposition was conveyed to them by Priyanka, he said. Singh also endorsed the recent claim of former prime minister Manmohan Singh`s media adviser Sanjaya Baru that important government files were taken to Sonia by Pulok Chatterjee, who was in the PMO, saying any question of protest over this did not arise as she was the "foremost" leader. Manmohan backs Sonia Former prime minister Manmohan Singh has also slammed his former colleague Natwar Singh, for making allegations against the Congress chief. Manmohan refuted Singh`s claim that important files from the PMO used to be sent to Sonia Gandhi`s 10, Janpath residence. The former PM further advised Singh: “Some conversations that take place in private shouldn`t be used for capital.” (With agency inputs)