Manmohan Singh backs Sonia Gandhi, says no files were sent to 10 Janpath

New Delhi: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday came out in defence of Sonia Gandhi, after former union minister Natwar Singh made a series of “disclosures” on the Congress president.

Manmohan dubbed the allegations made by Natwar Singh as false, and refuted his claim that important files from the PMO were used to be sent to Sonia Gandhi.

In an interview to an English news channel, Natwar Singh had backed the recent claim of Manmohan Singh’s former media adviser Sanjaya Baru that important government files were taken to Sonia Gandhi by Pulok Chatterjee, who was in the PMO.Natwar Singh is soon coming out with his autobiography titled “One Life is Not Enough: An Autobiography”.

The former PM had an advice for Natwar Singh: “Some conversations that take place in private shouldn’t be used for commercial purpose.”

Shortly before Manmohan reacted to Natwar Singh’s claims, Sonia Gandhi told that the truth will come out when she will write a book.
“When I will write my own book, then the truth will come out,” Sonia said, commenting on former external affairs minister’s allegations.

“What can I say when asked, are you hurt? I have seen my husband getting assassinated… my mother-in-law getting killed by bullets. Lot many people say many things about us,” she told Zee News.

Singh (83), an estranged Gandhi family friend who quit the Congress in 2008 after he had to resign from the UPA-I government in 2005 in the wake of the Iraqi food-for-oil scam, has claimed that it was not Sonia’s “inner voice” that prevented her, as she had stated at the time, to take up the PM’s post

Singh further claimed in the interview that to persuade him from not referring to this particular episode in his soon-to-be-released autobiography, the Congress president along with her daughter Priyanka Gandhi met him on May 7 at his residence but he decided to disclose the facts as they were and tell the “truth”.

“Rahul was totally against her mother becoming Prime Minister. He said she would be killed like his father and grandmother and as a son he would not allow to become the PM. He was very adamant,” Singh said, recalling a May 18, 2004 meeting where Manmohan Singh, Gandhi family friend Suman Dubey, Priyanka and he were present. Manmohan Singh later went on to become the prime minister.

Rahul’s opposition was conveyed to them by Priyanka, he said.