Journalist Tavleen Singh has attracted a lot of ire from devotees of Congress President Sonia Gandhi during the last three months. Reason, her latest book ‘India’s Broken Tryst.’
Overall, Tavleen Singh’s book features stories of four politicians and how people of India are being betrayed by their own leaders. This book focuses on Lal Krishna Advani, Rahul Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Sonia Gandhi. Tavleen Singh appears disparaging and dismissive about the Congress president.
Sacrificed accountability, but not power
Even Congress workers would perhaps like to know about what exactly happened when Sonia Gandhi went to meet the president at Rashtrapati Bhavan after winning 2004s Lok Sabha polls. ‘India’s Broken Tryst’ points out that initially, Congress vice-president had given green signal to journalists as far as accepting prime minister’s post is concerned. But, when she came out after meeting the president, she shared her ‘sacrifice’ plan. The author has shared her opinion that Sonia Gandhi claimed her ‘inner voice’ forced her to stay away from accepting prime ministership. This so-called sacrifice turned her into Indian political scene’s Mother Teresa. Her devotees, including journalists, political leaders, businessmen, and bureaucrats had got golden opportunity to praise her. This was the time when sycophants and messiahs of secularism started crawling out from everywhere.
Tavleen Singh points out that the Congress party has turned into a private limited company. In 2004, Sonia Gandhi inherited a country that was economically booming, thanks to P. V. Narasimha Rao’s reforms. During UPA 1 and 2, the economy was brought down and the country had to start from scratch. Now, even after two years from UPA’s exit, the country is still trying to rebuild its broken economy.
“In last three years of UPA-2, Sonia was the actual prime minister and created a political culture that was all about dynasty politics. Except in matters of daily governance, she remained in total charge of the government,”-said the author while sharing details about her book with a journalist.
Vajpayee acted like a Congress prime minister
Book also criticizes Atal Bihari Vajpayee for failing to bring a change that Indians were expecting him to bring.
“Vajpayee was Nehruvian in his political and economic ideas to change anything after becoming the prime minister. He is just remembered for building highways, nuclear test, and handling Kargil war. But, Vajpayee made a mistake by letting Brajesh Mishra handle the situation and releasing militants after plane hijack incident.” “Bofors money went to two of Sonia Gandhi’s best friends. Why didn’t he ever do anything to find out where the Bofors money was diverted? He was in awe of the family and never wished to go more than a particular point in trying to attack Gandhi family. He could have found out more about the case,”-said the senior journalist during her recent interaction with Karan Thapar.
While interacting with devil’s advocate, she also pointed out that the former Prime Minister ABV never missed an opportunity to be present when Congress party’s president and her children used to gather at memorial sites on banks of the Yamuna to remember some deceased members of the family.
Sonia Gandhi took too much advantage of this courtesy. Perhaps, Vajpayee did this because he was in awe of Gandhi family, current Prime Minister Narendra Modi never does that.
The author claims, just a day before 2004s Lok Sabha polls result, she was sitting along with some friends and her prescient fortune-teller sister, Kitto. They urged the Tarot Cards reader to check what cards had to say about Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi. Surprisingly, cards predicted disappointment for Vajpayee, but also claimed that Mrs. Gandhi won’t become India’s prime minister.
Tax terror
Tavleen Singh’s partner, Hindustan Construction Company’s MD, Ajit Gulabchand had to face consequences for journalist’s columns written against Sonia Gandhi.
The first chapter from journalist’s recently released book describes how Sonia Gandhi used the Income Tax department and ED officials like ‘terrorists’ to settle her personal scores. “Come down at once, we work for the Government of India, we are from Enforcement Directorate,”-they shouted like local thugs, says the author.
The group that raided the concerned house consisted of around 30 individuals. In her book, the author describes how arrogant individuals from ED raided their house with police officials and went back empty-handed. Even some pro-congress journalists have claimed this to be one of the most readable books. If you are crazy about Indian politics, ‘India’s Broken Tryst’ is a must read for you!