New Delhi: Her interactions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been limited, despite being on opposite sides of the political divide for more than a decade, Sonia Gandhi has said in her 544-page memoir.
She shares some common ground with the Prime Minister, the former Congress president has acknowledged.
“To this day, I’ve had practically no real contact with him. We meet at semi-official gatherings – for instance, at the Speaker’s chamber,” Sonia writes in her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love.
She has further claimed that PM Modi tends to avoid eye contact with her. “When he comes face-to-face with me, we greet each other with a formal namaste. This is different from the past, when leaders across party divides would treat one another with cordiality. He tends to look away, avoiding eye contact,” she wrote.
The memoir hit bookstores across India on Tuesday (November 10). It also sheds light on her views on the ideological differences that have shaped her political equation with the Prime Minister.
Their political rivalry stems from differences in their visions for India’s future rather than any personal differences between them, Sonia has said.
“He was fighting for his vision of India, and I for mine: an India against hegemony, an India that stands for inclusiveness, secularism, and social justice. It wasn’t personal,” she wrote.
While their political views differ widely, Sonia has pointed to aspects of Modi’s journey that she says she can relate to. She recalled feeling uncomfortable in Delhi’s elite social and political circles, where conversations often seemed far removed from the everyday struggles of ordinary people.
“There were elements of his discomfort with the ruling elite of our times that I, too, had come to understand well,” she wrote.
Modi came from an underprivileged background and gradually rose through the ranks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to reach a position of power, she has noted.
“He had certainly worked his way to power within the RSS from an underprivileged world,” she wrote.
Sonia also linked Modi’s criticism of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, to the influence of his upbringing and ideological conditioning within the RSS, as reported by timesnow.in.
The Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson shared excerpts from her newly released memoir on Tuesday.