They meet at official gatherings but there has been “no real contact with him”, writes Sonia Gandhi about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in her memoir, ‘Belonging: A Journey Of Love’, which hits the stands today.
“Narendra Damodardas Modi has been the prime minister of India for more than twelve years as of this writing and is now in his third term in office.
To this day, I’ve had practically no real contact with him,” she says in the book. The former Congress chief says whenever the two come together, they greet each other with a namaste, but claims that the Prime Minister “tends to look away, avoiding eye contact”, which she says is a departure from the cordiality expressed by leaders in the past.
“We meet at semi-official gatherings — for instance, at the end of every Parliament session, when leaders of the major parties customarily gather at the Speaker’s chamber. It’s a very small room, and usually many people are present, but 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. “When speaking in Parliament, he (Modi) at times uses the same coarse language he employs in addressing a public rally. Much of the time he derides the opposition in what can only be termed a tirade. “I tend to believe that this antipathy stems from the conditioning of the prime minister by the RSS. It has inculcated in its cadre a commitment to an exclusionary, hardened version of Hinduism that has been crafted into a political agenda.
Yet, in her 544-page memoir, former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi reveals she has had very little real contact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while acknowledging some common ground with the Bharatiya Janata Party leader.
He tends to look away, avoiding eye contact,” Gandhi says. Jawaharlal Nehru, our first prime minister, is a particular target of his party’s hostility, for having set our country on a democratic and secular course,” she says. The BJP’s stated aim, Gandhi says, is what they call a “Congress-free India” — free of the party, its policies, and its ideology. Earlier reporting noted: Gandhi, 79, also blames the prime minister’s sharp comments on Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first PM, on his “conditioning” by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Earlier reporting noted: Little real contact with Modi, but there is some common ground: Sonia Gandhi in memoir Belonging For over a decade, they were top political adversaries, squaring off on India’s electoral battlefield.
