My political career was made and unmade by the Gandhis: Mani Shankar Aiyar

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New Delhi, Dec 15, 2024: Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has said the irony of his life was that his political career was "made by the Gandhis and unmade by the Gandhis".

Aiyar also said for the last 10 years he has not been given the opportunity to meet Sonia Gandhi one-on-one or spend any meaningful time with Rahul Gandhi, except once.

In an interview with PTI Videos on his forthcoming book A Maverick in Politics published by Juggernaut, Aiyar said he "has had it all" but, at the end of the day, he was "completely isolated in the party". However, he maintained that he was still a member of the party and asserted, "I’ll never shift, and I will certainly not go to the BJP." Asked about the patronage from the Gandhis, Aiyar said, "If you want to be successful in politics as an individual, you have to have a very strong base. Either you have a constituency where you’re not defeated or you’re undefeatable, or you have a caste base or you have a religious base. I had none of these."

"I only had patronage. I had the favour of (former) prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. I then had the favour of Sonia Gandhi. But that’s a very, very uncertain basis on which to be in politics. So when Sonia Gandhi got angry with me in 2010, that patronage got withdrawn. And yet not completely withdrawn," he said.

Aiyar added that on a personal level, she continued to have some affection for him. "So it was a very slow decline. But it was a decline that took place over a period of about 15 years... And then, once Rahul Gandhi came in, I thought it was going to go up. Because he said to me that where he used to agree with me 75 per cent, he said ’now I agree with you 100 per cent’," the former Union minister told PTI.

"And then proved that he agreed with me 100 per cent by asking his mother to remove me from the only position I had in the Congress, which was as the national convenor of the party’s Panchayati Raj Sangathan, named after Rajiv Gandhi. And then refused to meet me, or most of the time refused to meet me. With the result that today, I am completely isolated," he said.

So, Aiyar said, the very family that gave him the opportunity to shine in the political domain had withdrawn that very opportunity from him in later years.

"The reason given is that I’ve had it all. And I have. I’ve been a member of Parliament on the Treasury benches. I’ve been a member of Parliament on the Opposition benches. I’ve been a minister. I’ve been out of the ministry and still an MP. So I’ve had it all. But at the end of the day, I am completely isolated in the party," he said.

For 10 years now, he has not been given the opportunity to have a one-on-one meeting with Sonia Gandhi or spend any meaningful time with Rahul Gandhi, the veteran leader claimed.

"And I have not spent time with Priyanka except on two occasions. And she comes on the phone to me, so I’m in touch with them. So the irony of my life is that my political career was made by the Gandhis and unmade by the Gandhis," he told PTI.

Towards the end when Singh was asked whether he had brought his views to the attention of then home minister P Chidambaram, he had replied by describing Chidambaram as "arrogant" and "unwilling to listen to advice," he says.