Already creating a political storm over his take on Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh sent shockwaves within the party after his claims that “50 Congressmen” have congratulated him for “telling the truth” in his new book.
Singh while making more revelations against three former Congress Prime Ministers and their Government policies, on Friday said that the strong reaction from the Congress chief proves that it has touched a “raw nerve” and something has “upset” her too much.
In his book, Natwar has brought out the frosty relationship between Sonia and late Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. He mentions that Sonia was “never fond of” Rao who in turn wondered why she was so “hostile” to him. Natwar also attacked Manmohan Singh and said he leaves no legacy after being in power for 10 years.
“Sonia had made PV Narasimha Rao Prime Minister. But she wasn’t very fond of him. I, too, had fallen out with him and joined the Tiwari Congress, but we later made up,” Singh recalls in his just-released book “One life Is Not Enough”. Rao had sought the services of Singh, then a close Gandhi family friend, in December 1994 to repair his relation with Gandhi.What was really the reason behind Sonia’s coldness to Rao has not been spelt out in the book but Singh says one of the things was that she was upset over the slow pace of trial of Rajiv Gandhi’s killers.
Despite his personal fondness for Rajiv Gandhi, Singh says the late Prime Minister “mishandled” the fallout of the Shah Bano case, the Ram Janmabhoomi issue and the agitation in Darjeeling hills. He also faulted him over his handling of the Bofors kickback controversy.
Rajiv’s frequent reshuffling of his Council of Ministers—there were over two dozen of them and the only Cabinet Minister to have completed five-year tenure was Railway Minister Madhavrao Scindia—meant they were not able to settle down in their jobs or offer any long-term policy proposals. Manmohan Singh’s reign as PM has been severely criticised by Singh. “What will be history’s verdict on
Dr Manmohan Singh’s Prime MinistershipIJ It will either be benignly indifferent or reduce it to a mere footnote. What will be Manmohan Singh’s legacyIJ Sadly, there will be none,” he writes in his autobiography. Singh was External Affairs Minister in UPA-I and he had to resign after his name appeared in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam in 2006.