Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has revealed in her autobiography, Belonging: A Journey of Love, that she first declined the Prime Ministership after the party's victory in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, before changing her mind overnight. The book, released on November 10, describes the internal conflict in detail for the first time, drawing on her own account of the period.
According to the book, coalition leaders pressed her to take the top job once the result was clear. Gandhi writes that she briefly responded with an assent, but that her conscience subsequently rejected the post. She says she felt a duty to the party workers who had fought the election, and that after a night of reflection she reversed her position. The sequence, as she presents it, moved from an immediate acceptance to a considered refusal and then back again within a short span of time.
The account places her children at the centre of the decision. Her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra opposed her becoming Prime Minister. Gandhi writes that the family had been shaped by the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and that the trauma of those losses weighed heavily on them. Before the election, she says, she had told her children she would absolutely not take the post, a position that the family's reaction in 2004 appeared to reinforce.
When the matter came before the Congress Parliamentary Party, Gandhi briefly left the House and then returned to address the MPs. They agreed to let her name her successor, and she chose Manmohan Singh as leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. The chamber erupted in applause, and according to the book, her children also applauded the choice. Manmohan Singh subsequently became Prime Minister, leading the government that followed the 2004 result.
The reporting carries an important caveat. The sequence of events, from the initial refusal to the reversal and the selection of Manmohan Singh, rests on Gandhi's own recollection in her autobiography. The private conversations with coalition leaders, the overnight deliberation and the exchanges with her children are described from her perspective, and no independent confirmation of those accounts has been provided. The book's release date is given in the source notes as November 10, 2026, and the internal conflict it describes is presented in detail for the first time.