My Political Career Made and Unmade by the Gandhis: Mani Shankar Iyer India news

In an interview with PTI Videos In his forthcoming book “A Maverick in Politics” published by JuggernautIyer said he “had it all” but, at the end of the day, he was “completely alone in the party”. However, he maintained that he was still a member of the party and insisted, “I will never change, and I will definitely not join the BJP”.

Asked about patronage from the Gandhis, Iyer said, “If you want to succeed in politics as an individual, you have to have a very strong base. Either you have a constituency where you are defeated.” Not or you’re undefeated, or you have a caste base or you have a religious base. I had none of these.”

“I was the only patron. I was in favor of (former) Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. At that time I got the favor of Sonia Gandhi. But that is a very precarious basis on which to base politics. So in 2010, when Sonia Gandhi got angry with me, that patronage was removed. And still not fully back,” he said.

Iyer said that she retains some affection for him on a personal level as well.

“So it was a very slow decline. But it was a decline that happened over a period of about 15 years … and then, once Rahul Gandhi came, I thought it was going up. Because he told me where he agreed with me 75 percent, He said, ‘Now I agree with you 100 percent’, said the former Union Minister. PTI.

“And then he proved that he agreed with me 100 percent by asking his mother to remove me from my only post in the Congress, which was as national coordinator of the party’s Panchayati Raj organization, which was named after Rajiv Gandhi. And then refused to see me, or even see me most of the time. He refused. As a result, I am completely alone today,’ he said.

Therefore, Iyer said that the family that gave him the opportunity withdrew that opportunity.

“The reason given is that I had it all. And I have it. I’ve been a Member of Parliament on the Treasury Bench. I’ve been a Member of Parliament on the Opposition Bench. I’ve been a Minister. I’m still an MP even after leaving the Ministry. So I’ve got it all. But the day In the end, I was completely alone in the party,’ he said.

For 10 years, he was not given a chance to meet Sonia Gandhi or spend any meaningful time with Rahul Gandhi, the veteran leader said.

“And I have not spent time with Priyanka except on two occasions. And she comes to me on the phone, so I am in touch with them. So the irony of my life is that my political career was shaped by the Gandhis and not by the Gandhis,” he said. PTI.

In a chapter of his book, Iyer details his “observation…fade out…collapse”.

In a 2010 interview, Digvijay Singh echoed his views on tackling Naxalism, Iyer says in the book.

Finally when Singh was asked if he had brought his idea to the notice of then Home Minister P Chidambaram, he responded by describing Chidambaram as “arrogant” and “unwilling to listen to advice”, he says.

The next day, how a TV reporter asked for his reaction to Singh’s interview and said, “I agree with him ‘one hundred thousand percent’,” referring to his remarks on Naxalism.

“Towards the end of the interview, the reporter asked if I shared Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s views on Digvijay. I cautiously replied that since the PC was a senior colleague of mine from the same state, Tamil Nadu, I didn’t want to comment on him,” he says.

“Typical of television news broadcasts, when the interview was aired, the ‘one hundred thousand percent’ comment was highlighted and Chidambaram’s ‘no comment’ was deleted,” Iyer says in the book.

He recounts receiving a “fierce tongue-lashing” over the phone from then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, an hour before he was sworn in as a Rajya Sabha member on April 15, 2010.

Aiyar would go on to spawn several controversies, including the 2017 “vile” comment row and his subsequent suspension from the party.
He has described how his distance from the Gandhi family grew with that incident, after he commented that his downfall on December 7, 2017 may have been the exact one.

“After I returned from Goa in early January 2018, I was waiting for the members of the AICC Central Disciplinary Committee to get back to me. None did. So, I called them. The Three Musketeers said they will not respond to the show cause notice until they meet Rahul and bring me back, reiterating their plea. “They never did,” says Iyer, who is yet to meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi shunned me “like a political leper”, he says.

“This farce went on for the better part of six months. Then, on the eve of my wife and I leaving for Boston to spend a few weeks with our daughter, who is teaching at MIT, I called Priyanka and asked her to text Rahul my birthday wishes on June 19 while I was away,” he says.

Iyer says she asked him why he could not send his wishes himself and was shocked to learn that he could not communicate with Rahul Gandhi until his suspension was lifted.

“She started asking how, in that case, I was in touch with her, and quickly corrected herself, saying, ‘Ah! I see, because I’m not at the party!’ She then suggested that I send my greetings and she would send them to her brother,” says Iyer.

“Since my birthday was still a few weeks away, I thought this was an opportunity to press my case for reinstatement in the party. Accordingly, on the Delhi-Doha sector of our flight to Boston, I drafted my petition for the lifting of my suspension, thinly disguised as a birthday greeting. I have prepared,” he says.

“When we reached Doha, I gave my draft to (my wife) Suneet. She was disgusted. ‘You have no self-respect?’ she asked me. ‘Why do you cry like that?’ I honestly didn’t know. That was the standard mode in which Congressmen would plead with their President for their rights,” he adds.

“I was here, replied Suneet, begging on my knees before a man 30 years younger than me. For what? After serving the party for three decades and standing by my father? he says.

“So, on the next sector, Doha-Boston, I rewrote the letter. Suneet took the draft from me and looked at it hastily. She scolded me again: Did I have no self-respect? Did I demand my right to be heard, to seek justice and fairness. , he says, had to crawl to present my case to the person responsible for my arbitrary suspension?

“What was I after? A little corner in the Congress sun after proving my worth for a quarter of a century? Didn’t I realize that people who wanted to save themselves were making me a scapegoat? Could I not see that Since they have no use for me, I am being thrown away like dirty tissue paper? Why not walk away with my dignity intact?” He says.

Don’t go after them, his wife advised Iyer, especially after the abominable treatment he received, according to the book.

“I withdrew my second draft and started on the third. Which she refused to even look at. The rest was up to me. I sent the third draft and waited weeks for a reply. When it came, it was just a regular letter of thanks for the birthday wishes that Rahul had sent. People should have been sent,” he says.

Then, suddenly, K Raju, IAS (retd), a close aide of Rahul Gandhi, came secretly to inform him of his re-induction into the party on August 20, Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday. According to the book, he will meet Rahul Gandhi on that day.

Although the suspension was revoked, the meeting could not be held.