Sonia Gandhi Memoir Recalls Plea to Rajiv Not to Become PM After Indira’s Assassination

Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love , released on November 10, 2026, revisits her plea for Rajiv Gandhi to refuse the prime minister’s post after his mother’s assassination. The book also recounts the death of their firstborn son, according to reports accompanying its release, including NDTV’s coverage .

The exchange with Rajiv took place at the hospital on October 31, 1984, following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. In Sonia’s account, he told her he had been asked to become prime minister, prompting her to break down and beg him with folded hands to refuse.

“They will kill you; they will kill you, too!” she recalls telling him in an edited memoir extract published by The Guardian on November 7 .

His response, according to her account, was: “They will kill me anyway.”

Recalling Fear for Rajiv’s Safety

In an accompanying Guardian interview published November 7, conducted by Hannah Ellis-Petersen at Sonia’s Delhi home, she described the anxiety that followed Rajiv’s decision to become prime minister.

“Fear was a very real thing … My thought was always: he will be killed next,” she said.

These are retrospective accounts of her fears, not evidence of advance knowledge of a specific assassination plot. Rajiv was subsequently killed by an LTTE suicide bomber during an election campaign in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991.

The loss of Their First Child

The memoir also describes Sonia’s refusal to have her newborn son’s body consigned to a river after his death, according to The New Indian Express’s November 10 report .

The child was the couple’s firstborn, not Rahul Gandhi. Born about two months prematurely on January 18, 1969, he died within roughly a day.

“No matter what, I'm not going to allow our baby to be thrown into the river,” Sonia wrote. Her account concerns funeral arrangements after the infant’s death, not the immersion of a living child.

Rahul was born later, on June 19, 1970.