Sharad Pawar: Sonia did not want ‘independent mind’ as PM
New Delhi: Sharad Pawar, who had floated the NCP in 1999 on the issue of “self-pride” and against a “foreign origin” person becoming Prime Minister, in his new book speaks of coteries and the amendment of the CPP constitution to enable Mrs Sonia Gandhi to become the CPP leader when she was not a member of either House of Parliament.
“Though I was among those few who invited Sonia Gandhi to become Congress President, there was little warmth between us. At best our relations were cordial,” he says.
The Maratha strongman, who had openly staked claim to the post of Prime Minister after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, had even announced his candidature against P.V. Narasimha Rao for the post of CPP leader.
In his book On My Terms: From The Grass-roots to the Corridors of Power, released here on his 75th birthday celebrations in Vigyan Bhavan on December 10, he spoke about the functioning of the Congress before and after the emergence of Sonia Gandhi and the birth of the NCP.
He later said the ‘self-styled’ loyalists of 10, Janpath convinced Sonia Gandhi that it would be better to back P. V. Narasimsha Rao in 1991 as Prime Minister over him as the “Gandhi family was not about to let someone with independent mind” to get the top post.
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