Sonia Gandhi's Memoirs: Criticism of Congress and the Gandhi Family

Hello, um, and a very good evening to you all.

Sonia Gandhi's, uh, memoirs are the greatest own goal that I have ever witnessed in, uh, in the recent past or even beyond the recent past.

Shockingly, it is a complete revelation and a blueprint of the DNA of what the Congress, in its time, the great Congress Party, really was.

And a shocking reflection on, uh, the first family, the first political family of this country, who we've all revered at the time.

Mrs. Gandhi, we all felt and we believed there was a lot of depth, there was a lot of substance, there was a lot of political vision in this family, only to discover that really, uh, it was all feet of clay.

And, um, funnily enough, Sonia Gandhi has, has, um, has revealed this.

And as much as there are moments, there are points in the book where she has spoken as a wife, and she has every right to do that.

There's been a lot of emotional turmoil in the family, and one accepts that.

I'm putting that aside.

But I tell you when, you know, when, um, uh, Shri Narendra Modi came and, um, in, in 2013 and was standing for prime minister, we knew he was going to win.

But we did not... We, we were always a little skeptical as to how he would be able to displace the Congress, because we all believed that the Congress had a lot of depth.

They had a lot of, uh, experience in the political world.

But he did. He came and he just, "I'll huff and puff and blow your house down," and he did.

And I always wondered, I said, like, "What happened to this great party?

How did the Congress just get blown away?"

And now we realize that at, at the time, it was very clear that they were just sycophants who hovered around, uh, like flies around a pot of honey, and that the pot of honey was not there.

It all began to leak, so they all fled, never to be seen again.

And today, now that this book has come out, it, and I, it really reflects on us as people, as Indians, how we put people on a pedestal because they're foreigners.

Well, at the time, I mean, you know, okay, I grant you that there was no social media, so we did not have insights into how the Gandhi family was truly thinking, which comes out now.

And, uh, very shocked to hear that, uh, that this was the, this was the level of, uh, where they were.

So I, I think they deserve to have been gone.

I mean, I grew up in the, under the Congress.

I'm 70 years old. I don't usually reveal my age, but I mean, for this one, I'll have to do it.

So I was, you know, I've, I've grown up under the rule of the Congress, and I've seen the level of, uh, um, you know, corruption and the way it worked, or rather didn't work.

So anyway, I mean, I think this is a, this is a great book to, to, to understand, uh, what we went through for those past 45 to 50 years.

And thank you, Sonia Gandhi.

Excellent own goal. Thank you.