Sonia Gandhi Announces Memoir Amid Longstanding Public Interest in Her Political and Personal Story
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The former Congress chief, 79, said her upcoming memoir will clarify disputed accounts of her past, including her opposition to Rajiv Gandhi becoming prime minister after Indira Gandhi's assassination.
Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said she will publish a memoir titled Belonging: A Journey Of Love on November 10, coinciding with the Diwali holiday. The 79-year-old leader said the book is intended to set the record straight on what she described as invented or exaggerated accounts of her life.
"Well I felt since a lot had been written about me, and a lot of it was not quite correct, or you know it was either invented or exaggerated, so it gave me a feel of being able to now put down my story and describe facts and things as they were," Gandhi said in a video posted on X.
She acknowledged that the memoir could draw mixed reactions and described any public debate as "a tamasha." Gandhi also reiterated that she opposed her husband Rajiv Gandhi's appointment as prime minister after the 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi.
"When then, my husband was, you know, asked to become Prime Minister, which I was totally against," she said.
Gandhi recalled meeting Rajiv in 1965 at a Greek restaurant in Cambridge, England, describing the encounter as the start of a lifelong partnership. The book will be released worldwide by Alfred A. Knopf, with HarperCollins India handling distribution in India.