Sonia Gandhi recalls that she had agreed to become a candidate from Amethi following demands from the ground but her senior colleagues insisted that she pick a constituency in the south as well.
Sonia Gandhi fought in Karnataka’s Bellary in 1999 as senior Congress leaders felt that the BJP would try its best to get the election in Amethi countermanded and her “conclusive” victory in the southern state left her surprised, her memoir ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’ says.
In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, Sonia had fought two seats and won both but she resigned from Bellary to keep Amethi, the Gandhis’ pocket borough and one that was represented by her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The former Congress president recalls that she had agreed to become a candidate from Amethi following demands from the ground but her senior colleagues insisted that she pick a constituency in the south as well.
“That was because of strong rumours that the BJP would do its best to ensure that I did not enter Parliament, even finding ways to have the Amethi election countermanded…A cat-and-mouse game followed, which took me to Bellary in Karnataka via Andhra Pradesh,” she writes.
On learning about the plan, the BJP and the RSS started looking for an “appropriate candidate and settled on Sushma Swaraj, “calculating that she’d keep me busy in Bellary even if she didn’t win, and that would prevent me from giving time to Amethi and other parts of the country”.
