‘Inner conscience’ speaks to Sonia again

NEW DELHI: India’s reluctant leader Sonia Gandhi has cited her “inner conscience” as reason for giving up a key political post for the second time in two years. Unlike in 2004, however, when she was dubbed “Saint Sonia” by the media after renouncing the prime minister’s job, the decision on Thursday to quit her seat in parliament was seen not as self-sacrifice but as a political necessity.

“She was caught red-handed trying to subvert democracy,” said leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Arun Jaitley, minutes after 59-year-old Sonia Gandhi announced she was giving up her seat in parliament.

The Italian-born ruling Congress party chief also said she was standing down as chairwoman of the government’s National Advisory Council.

The BJP had charged that Sonia Gandhi was breaking parliamentary regulations by holding both positions.

“Following the principles of probity and my inner conscience, I am resigning my post in the parliament,” she told reporters.

“I have done this because I think it is the right thing to do.”

Her words bore more than a faint echo of those she used when, after propelling Congress to a surprise electoral victory over the then-ruling BJP in May 2004, she was offered the job as prime minister.

She was poised to make history as India’s first foreign-born leader. But with Hindu right-wingers threatening mass demonstrations and vowing to hound the “foreigner” out of office, she quietly declined the top government post.

“I was always certain that if ever I found myself in the position that I am in today, I would follow my own inner voice. Today, that voice tells me I must humbly decline this post,” she said.

Sonia has always let it be known she is a reluctant politician.

Growing up the daughter of a middle-class construction magnate in the northern Italian town of Orbassano, she was thrust into the seething cauldron of Indian politics after marrying Rajiv Gandhi, scion of India’s political first family, in February 1968.

His assassination in 1991 left Congress in limbo and party chiefs turned to his widow to help guide the party back to prominence. She acknowledges her makeover into a public figure was tough.

“I used to be a very, very private person,” she said in a television interview late last year. “I think I have progressed. I am certainly less shy than I was.”

But “it took a great deal of adjustment ... to be in the limelight.”

In rare personal interviews, she makes it clear she sees herself as torchbearer of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has given the country three premiers. Her two children, son Rahul and daughter Priyanka, are seen by analysts as both having the potential one day to occupy India’s highest post.

And while respected economist Manmohan Singh became premier, Sonia Gandhi still enjoys huge clout as party president, deciding many appointments and party policies.

Her loss of her seat in parliament is temporary.

A special election must now be held in her constituency of Rae Bareli in the state of Uttar Pradesh — a safe Congress bastion — within 90 days.

No one doubts she will win and be back in parliament in time for the monsoon session mid-year.

The Indian constitution disqualifies an MP “if he holds any office of profit under the Indian government or government of any state, other than an office declared by parliament by law not to disqualify its holder.” This time around, she will be hard pressed to come out looking saintly.—AFP