New Delhi: The BJP took another dig at Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s memoir on Wednesday, saying that she decided to make the ‘super sacrifice’ of not taking up prime ministership only to become a ‘super PM’.
MP and party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi rejected Sonia’s claim in her memoir, ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’ that Rajiv Gandhi was against the Emergency.
Sonia, in her memoir, released on Tuesday, wrote how she went from completely rejecting the idea of taking up prime ministership to a feeble ‘theek hai’ when alliance colleagues pressed her to take the job only to finally say a firm, categorical no.
“What a super sacrifice it was that she became super PM leaving the PM’s post,” Trivedi told reporters when asked about Sonia sharing her inner turmoil before turning down the prime minister’s post in 2004.
Sonia left the PM’s post but took up a Cabinet rank for being chairperson of the National Advisory Committee during the Congress-led UPA rule, he said.
“You will not find such an example of sacrifice anywhere in the world where a Cabinet rank is taken up leaving the PM’s post. National Advisory Committee chairperson, a Cabinet rank that too with office of profit, meaning secured a profitable Cabinet rank,” he said.
“And when a controversy erupted, Sonia had to resign. Before she could return after the election, the Manmohan Singh government, which was running under her leadership, changed the rules and put the NAC chairman’s post out of the office of profit,” the BJP leader said.
Trivedi further slammed Sonia for blaming her brother-in-law Sanjay Gandhi for the imposition of the Emergency and claiming that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was against it.
Rajiv Gandhi had supported the Emergency on various occasions, he claimed.