‘When politics chose me’: Sonia Gandhi’s 2007 speech offered a glimpse into her personal life

Sonia Gandhi had come to India to marry Rajiv Gandhi, then a pilot with no political ambitions, and expected to build a private life with her husband and their two children

Updated - October 30, 2026 09:49 am IST

Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson (CPP) and MP Sonia Gandhi, right, during the unveiling of her upcoming book 'Belonging: A Journey of Love', as she makes her debut on Instagram, in New Delhi. File photo:AICC via PTI

Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s promised memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, is among the most anticipated books in India this year — not only for its political content but also for the glimpse it offers into the private life of one of the country’s most ‘private’ public figures.

She has promised that the book is bound to create a ‘tamasha’ as she tells her story in her own words. But almost two decades before the memoir, Ms. Gandhi offered a rare account of her private world in a speech at the Netherlands-based Nexus Institute.

Published - October 30, 2026 06:20 am IST

India / politics / Indian National Congress / books and literature

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