Why did Sonia Gandhi refuse Prime Ministership?

Since a controversy is raging in the wake of Natwar Singh’s book on Sonia’s refusal to be PM, I propose to express my views on this.

In my opinion, several factors have combined to make her refuse and her inner voice was her well-considered decision by carefully assessing all these factors. One, the fear of getting assassinated on assuming high office. The assassination of Indira and Rajiv happened under very special circumstances on account of some very wrong decisions taken by the two. There was hardly any chance of any such happening in the case of Sonia. But members of the immediate family do not view things so rationally and they are apt to exaggerate their fears many times over, on account of their natural love for their loved one. So Sonia’s children must have been insistent on her not accepting to become PM. Second, the job of the PM in India is a very difficult one. Any and everybody is not equipped for the job. It requires great administrative and political acumen to handle such a job in India which is full of problems.Sonia apparently was hardly so equipped.

In my opinion in spite of her being hardworking as her 2004 campaign showed, she would have been a miserable failure as PM. She must have been fully conscious of all her limitations in this regard. So her fear of failure also must have told her inner voice so. Third, if she accepted to be PM in spite of her Italian descent, the BJP would have launched a huge movement against her, even though she was fully eligible to be PM after becoming an Indian citizen.

It was therefore a very wise decision to refuse to become PM.

A PM has to run the government and the country which is a difficult job. He also has a lot of patronage to distribute by which one can establish his hold on the party. So Sonia did a very clever thing. She selected Manmohan Singh, a political nonentity for being PM, so that he could run the government and she could distribute the patronage and select ministers, governors as well as other important functionaries. So she wielded power without being accountable, a very very convenient arrangement indeed.

Now that the Congress is not in power, and she cannot distribute any patronage, her hold on the party is weakening and is likely to disappear fast.

SHANTI BHUSHAN

FORMER UNION LAW MINISTER & SENIOR ADVOCATE
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA.