Sonia Gandhi recalls failed 1999 bid to form government, admits ‘miscalculation’

As she walked towards a large gathering of journalists after staking a claim to form the government and crossed the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1999, her heart sank, recalls Sonia Gandhi in her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love. The assurances of backing she carried were about to collapse,

“As I walked towards them, I could feel my heart sink. I was facing that kind of en masse media for the first time; even with colleagues flanking me, it was an excruciating strain to appear confident,” she wrote.

Recounts failed bid to form govt

Following the withdrawal of support by J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK, the Vajpayee government had collapsed. The Congress, the largest Opposition party, and its allies with 233 MPs started talks with regional and Left parties. However, the majority mark in the 543-member Lok Sabha stood at 272.

The former Congress president wrote that others gave assurances regarding reaching the required numbers. This, she said, led her to believe that her party and its allies would be able to eventually get the numbers, and so she went to the President to stake claim to form the government.

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“Mrs. Gandhi, spell out how you have reached this number you claim, 272,” one journalist asked.

“Even though we are short of some at this moment, we are confident we will reach the required number,” she said, reported NDTV.

However, the Congress did not get the support it was allegedly assured of, and the bid to form the government fell through.

Sonia admits miscalculation

“As it turned out, the promised support failed to materialise,” she wrote, adding that several leaders wanted to be the Prime Minister, and that left the coalition with more contenders than it could accommodate.

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Sonia further stated that she had no wish to be Prime Minister herself. However, she accepted that she had moved too quickly. “I’d been too hasty, single-mindedly focused on trying to dislodge the right-wing government,” she wrote.

‘We didn’t bring them down’

The BJP sought a fresh election, and following a month of campaigning, the NDA returned to power under Vajpayee.

Asked whether bringing down that government had been a mistake, she said that was the wrong way to see it. “We didn’t bring them down; it was their coalition that collapsed,” she wrote.

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“Nevertheless, it was a miscalculation on my part. Our group was depending on assurances given by certain persons, and those were not fulfilled,” she added.

Recalls objection to her foreign origin

Sonia further revealed that in May 1999, three members of the Congress Working Committee, Sharad Pawar among them, wrote to object to a foreign-born person holding high office, and the objection was repeated at a CWC meeting.

“I felt tears welling up and walked out of the meeting. I hadn’t entered politics to grab position and power,” she wrote.