Sonia Gandhi’s Memoir ‘Belonging’ Stirs a Political Storm: Pranab’s PM Ambition, Modi and the BJP’s ‘Whitewashing’ Charge

November 11, 2026 Faizan Altaf

Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, has set off a political storm in India just a day after it went on sale. The book, released on Tuesday 10 November 2026 by HarperCollins India, contains frank revelations about former President Pranab Mukherjee’s wish to become prime minister, her distant relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and her sharp criticism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Sonia Gandhi, 79, is the former president of the Congress party and now chairs the Congress Parliamentary Party. She is one of India’s most private politicians, and she has rarely spoken in detail about her personal life or her years at the top of Indian politics. That is why this memoir matters: it is the first time she has told her own story in her own words, from her childhood in Italy to her decades at the centre of the Nehru-Gandhi family, India’s most famous political dynasty.

The book has already produced a public row. Mukherjee’s daughter has pushed back against Sonia Gandhi’s account of her late father, and the BJP has attacked the book as an attempt to “whitewash” history. Here is what the memoir says, what the reactions have been, and why it matters.

What the memoir is

Belonging: A Journey of Love is, in Sonia Gandhi’s own description, a personal book rather than a political one. It runs to more than 500 pages and opens with an inscription from the Rig Veda, one of Hinduism’s oldest texts.

The book traces her journey from humble Italian origins to becoming the matriarch of the Nehru-Gandhi family. It covers family tragedies, including the loss of her first child, her personal health struggles, her marriage into Indian politics, and her long years leading the Congress party. It also gives her account of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) years, from 2004 to 2014, when the Congress-led coalition governed India and Manmohan Singh was prime minister.

The memoir almost did not reach Indian bookshops at all. Penguin Random House India had first shown interest in publishing it, but later decided not to take the Indian edition. Sonia Gandhi told The Guardian that the publisher was “uneasy in general with the criticism of the government” in the book. She said she was disappointed by the decision, though not entirely surprised, and saw it as an effort to censor her work. HarperCollins India then stepped in and published the book in India on 10 November.

The Pranab Mukherjee revelation

The biggest headline from the book so far concerns Pranab Mukherjee, the veteran Congress leader who later became India’s President. Sonia Gandhi writes that in 2010, Mukherjee hinted to her that he wanted to become prime minister.

Mukherjee was then a senior minister and a member of the Congress party’s core group, which met weekly with the prime minister to coordinate between the party and the government. Sonia Gandhi writes that after one such meeting, Mukherjee stayed back and said: “perhaps it was time for a change at the top.”

She writes that she understood this “as a hint of his long-held desire to become prime minister” and that she was shocked. “I gently changed the subject,” she writes. She adds that Mukherjee never held it against her, even though he may have been disappointed.

Sonia Gandhi also writes that Mukherjee had developed serious differences with P. Chidambaram, who was then the finance minister. It was after expressing his frustration over those differences, she says, that he made the remark about a change at the top.

Mukherjee went on to become India’s 13th President in 2012, when the Congress nominated him as the UPA’s candidate for the presidency. He served as President from 2012 to 2017. Sonia Gandhi writes that she often called on him afterwards, mostly just to talk with “the erudite and knowledgeable politician that he always remained.”

The book also recalls a lighter moment involving Mukherjee. During a lunch to honour Prince Charles at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010, Prince Edward greeted the Union Cabinet with the words: “And you lot — who are you?” Sonia Gandhi writes that Mukherjee, “drawing himself up to his full height of five foot three inches, said stiffly, ‘I am Pranab Mukherjee, the finance minister of India, and these are my cabinet colleagues.'”

His daughter hits back

The revelation did not go unanswered. Sharmistha Mukherjee, Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter, publicly pushed back against Sonia Gandhi’s account. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked, defending her father’s ambition. She argued that his long record in public life and governance gave him every reason to aspire to the country’s highest political office.

She also pointed out that nobody had served her father positions “on a platter due to dynastic entitlements,” a remark widely read as a contrast with the Nehru-Gandhi family, where leadership has passed between generations. She questioned why her father’s ambition should have come as a surprise to Sonia Gandhi at all.

Sonia Gandhi’s book itself acknowledges Mukherjee’s long service. She notes that he left the party in 1984 and formed his own party after Rajiv Gandhi was chosen as prime minister, feeling he had been sidelined. He returned to the Congress in 1989. Over the years, she writes, he held almost all the important portfolios in Congress governments, but “deep down he felt his seniority and experience made him a natural candidate for the prime ministership.”

What she says about Modi

The memoir also describes Sonia Gandhi’s relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the picture it paints is one of distance. She writes that despite Modi having been prime minister for more than twelve years and now being in his third term, she has had “practically no real contact with him.”

The two meet at official and semi-official gatherings, including events in the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chamber at the end of Parliament sessions. Sonia Gandhi writes that they exchange a formal “namaste” but rarely speak beyond that. “He tends to look away, avoiding eye contact,” she writes. She also recalls that Modi once enquired about her well-being after she returned home from hospital.

She describes the distance between them as ideological rather than personal. In the book, she says their visions of India are fundamentally different: she stands for an India based on inclusiveness, secularism and social justice, while she opposes what she calls hegemony. She also criticises the language Modi has used about Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and attributes his approach to his “conditioning” by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent organisation of the BJP.

At the same time, she praises Modi’s political rise in one respect, noting that he came from a humble and backward background and rose to the top of the RSS through his own efforts. Her point, as reported, is that his political journey was completely different from hers.

“I did not run the government from behind”

One of the most persistent criticisms Sonia Gandhi faced during the UPA years was that she exercised real power from behind the scenes while Manmohan Singh was the formal head of government. In the memoir, she rejects that charge directly.

She writes that she was clear about the difference between the roles of the prime minister and the Congress president, and that it was her responsibility to respect Manmohan Singh’s position as head of the government. She could offer suggestions or disagree with him as party president, she says, but the final authority was his.

The book also revisits her decision to decline the prime minister’s post after the Congress-led UPA won the 2004 general election. She chose instead to nominate Manmohan Singh, a decision that shaped Indian politics for the next decade.

The BJP’s response

The ruling BJP attacked the book on the day of its release. Its national spokesperson, C. R. Kesavan, said Sonia Gandhi should have named the book “whitewashing,” accusing the memoir of “sugar coating the historical wrongs perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi family.”

The criticism goes beyond the Pranab Mukherjee passage. In the memoir, Sonia Gandhi accuses the BJP of “systematically dismantling” India’s democratic institutions, suppressing dissent, and centralising political and economic power. She criticises the functioning of constitutional institutions, the mainstream media, central investigative agencies, electoral processes and welfare schemes, and the treatment of religious and political minorities.

She also calls the 2016 demonetisation — the sudden overnight withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes — a “telling example” of what she describes as Modi’s “autocratic methods.” She accuses sections of the mainstream media of abandoning their independence and functioning as “propaganda arms of the government,” and notes that Modi has not held a single press conference in the twelve years he has been in office. She further accuses the Modi government of taking over more than 30 UPA-era programmes, renaming them and reducing them in scale.

The book has been released at a sensitive political moment. The Congress party is trying to regain ground against the BJP, and Sonia Gandhi’s son Rahul Gandhi has been leading opposition protests over the last month.

Why this book matters now

Memoirs by Indian political leaders are rare, and memoirs by someone who led the Congress party for nearly two decades are rarer still. Sonia Gandhi led the party through two general election victories and ten years in government, and she remained its most powerful figure even after stepping down as president.

For readers, the book offers something that press conferences and interviews never did: her own version of events, in her own words. For historians, it is a first-hand account of the UPA years, the relationship between the party and the government, and the personalities who shaped that decade.

For the Congress party, the timing is delicate. The book has reopened old arguments inside the party’s own extended family — the Mukherjee family’s response shows that not everyone agrees with her version of events. And the BJP’s swift attack shows that the book will be fought over as a political document, whatever its author says about it being a personal one.

The row over the Pranab Mukherjee passage is a reminder of how much of Indian politics is still shaped by the UPA decade. The questions the book raises — who really held power, who deserved the top job, and how the party and the government related to each other — are questions the Congress has never fully settled in public. Sonia Gandhi has now given her answers. Others, starting with Sharmistha Mukherjee, are giving theirs.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sonia Gandhi’s memoir called?

The book is called Belonging: A Journey of Love. It was published by HarperCollins India and released on Tuesday 10 November 2026.

What did Sonia Gandhi say about Pranab Mukherjee?

She writes that in 2010, Mukherjee told her that “perhaps it was time for a change at the top,” which she understood as a hint of his long-held desire to become prime minister. She says she was shocked and changed the subject. Mukherjee later became President of India in 2012.

How did Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter respond?

Sharmistha Mukherjee defended her father, asking “what’s wrong with it” and saying there was nothing wrong in being ambitious. She argued that his long record in public life gave him every reason to aspire to the prime minister’s post.

What does the book say about Narendra Modi?

Sonia Gandhi writes that she has had “practically no real contact” with Modi despite his twelve years as prime minister, that they exchange only a formal “namaste” at official events, and that he “tends to look away, avoiding eye contact.” She also criticises his government’s record, including the 2016 demonetisation.

Why did Penguin not publish the book in India?

Sonia Gandhi has said Penguin Random House India was “uneasy in general with the criticism of the government” in the book. The publisher has maintained that no external pressure influenced its decision. HarperCollins India stepped in and published the Indian edition.

Is the memoir a political book?

Sonia Gandhi has described it as a personal book rather than a political one. Even so, it contains detailed accounts of her political life, her relationship with Manmohan Singh, and her criticism of the BJP government.

Conclusion

Belonging: A Journey of Love is more than a memoir. In less than a day, it has reopened a debate about Pranab Mukherjee’s ambitions, strained the relationship between two of the Congress party’s most prominent families, and drawn a sharp attack from the ruling BJP. Sonia Gandhi waited years to tell her story, and she has told it plainly — about power, about the people she worked with, and about the India she believes is being lost.

Whether readers see the book as a personal reflection or a political intervention, it is now part of the record. The arguments it has started will continue long after the launch-week headlines fade.

Sources

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

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