By Aurangzeb Naqshbandi

Sonia Gandhi became the Congress president for the first time on March 14, 1998 after she was forced to come out of her self-imposed political hibernation. A year later, she had to face one of the biggest challenges of her political career when her three senior colleagues – Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar, and PA Sangma -revolted against her. They were against her being projected as the party’s prime ministerial candidate in view of her foreign origin for she was born in Italy.

On May 14, 1999, she resigned from the post. “Although born in a foreign land, I chose India as my country and would remain an Indian till my last breath. India is my country and would remain an Indian till my last breath. India is my motherland, dearer to me than my own life,” she wrote in her resignation letter to the Congress Working Committee (CWC).

The move prompted the resignation spree from a large number of senior leaders and then chief ministers Digvijaya Singh (Madhya Pradesh), Sheila Dikshit (Delhi), Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), and Giridhar Gamang (Orissa). Hundreds of workers launched hunger strikes and agitation to request her to withdraw her resignation.

Sonia Gandhi finally relented but only after the party expelled Pawar, Sangma, and Anwar for six years on May 20. Four days later, she returned as the Congress president. The next day, a special session of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) was called to welcome her back as the party chief.

However, she was not able to quell the rebellion fully. Over a year later in November 2000, she faced a challenger in Jitendra Prasada, who was political advisor to two prime ministers – first her husband Rajiv Gandhi and later PV Narasimha Rao apart from being Congress vice-president from June 1997 to April 1998, and Rajesh Pilot who along with Pawar had earlier contested unsuccessfully against Sitaram Kesri in 1997.

Read more: https://www.newsdrum.in/analysis/congress-president-elections-when-sonia-gandhi-faced-a-contest-92279.html