Sonia Gandhi recounts 2002 Gujarat riots in new memoir

Sonia Gandhi, then Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, detailed her 2002 trip to Ahmedabad in the memoir Belonging: A Journey of Love, published by HarperCollins India. She wrote that she joined an all-party parliamentary delegation after negotiations with the state government and was taken to relief camps where survivors of the communal violence were sheltering. Gandhi said a father showed the delegation his severely weakened child and pleaded for help, describing the scene as "shattered" and leaving the visitors in a state of stupor.

Gandhi alleged that the state administration failed to respond to calls for assistance as the riots spread after the burning of four coaches of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra, which killed fifty-eight people. She attributed the escalation of violence to extremist elements of the BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal, and noted that the chief minister at the time was Narendra Modi.

The memoir also mentions that Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee faced pressure to dismiss Modi, while international governments later refused Modi a visa in 2005, a decision later reversed when he became prime minister.

In a separate passage, Gandhi observes that she has had little personal interaction with Prime Minister Modi during his more than twelve years in office, describing their encounters as limited to formal greetings in the Speaker's chamber.

The book prompted a response from the BJP, whose national spokesperson CR Kesavan accused Gandhi of attempting to whitewash the Congress party's historical record, citing her references to past communal incidents and the 1975 Emergency.