New Delhi, Oct 22 (PTI): Congress leader Sonia Gandhi made her Instagram debut on Thursday with posts on her upcoming book, which she said is a “story of love, duty, loss and finding a place to belong”.
This is Gandhi’s first foray into social media as over the years she has been using the X handle of the Congress to release her video statements or other messages and letters that she wished to make public.
The Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson immediately followed the Instagram accounts of her son Rahul and daughter Priyanka, along with that of the party. The number of followers of her account multiplied at a fast pace and within a few hours, her account has over 110K followers.
All top Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, who are on Instagram started following the former Congress president’s account.
Several Congress leaders took to social media to praise Gandhi and expressed enthusiasm for her book.
In her first post on Instagram, Sonia Gandhi shared a video clip of her receiving copies of her upcoming book “Belonging: A Journey of Love”.
“Hello everyone, I’m truly grateful to share this moment with you all; the first look of Belonging: A Journey of Love,” she said in her post on Instagram.
“It is a story of love, duty, loss and finding a place to belong. I look forward to sharing it with you,” she said.
In the video, Gandhi is seen receiving the first copies of her book and sharing sweets with her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on the occasion.
Gandhi points out that the book has a lot of photographs. The video garnered over 180K likes in a matter of hours.
In her second post, Gandhi shared a picture of her scanning through the book.
Sharing the video clip posted by her, Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said, “The long-awaited memoir of Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, will be out on November 10th.”
Last month, HarperCollins India said it will publish Gandhi’s memoir “Belonging: A Journey of Love” in India on November 10, ending the uncertainty over the book’s domestic publication following an “impasse” between the author’s representatives and Penguin Random House India (PRHI).
HarperCollins India’s announcement followed a controversy involving PRHI, which was initially keen to publish the memoir but subsequently said it would not be the Indian publisher.
The controversy began amid reports of differences between the publisher and the author’s representatives over editorial changes to the manuscript.
Several Congress leaders had raised issues of governmental pressure and freedom of expression with some alleging that there was pressure on Penguin India to remove sections relating to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the RSS and China’s occupation of Indian territory during the Modi regime.
PRHI clarified that they were “really keen” to publish the book, describing it as a “hard-won acquisition”, but ultimately decided to step away due to a “stalemate over a particular issue”.
While maintaining there was no external pressure whatsoever, PRHI declined to disclose the exact nature of the impasse, citing confidentiality clauses and their agreement with the author.
“Belonging” begins with Gandhi’s childhood in post-war Veneto, Italy and traces her journey to Cambridge, where in 1965 she met Rajiv Gandhi.
The memoir recounts her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi and her introduction to her mother-in-law, former prime minister Indira Gandhi, as well as her efforts to adjust to life in India, including learning Hindi, wearing saris and adapting to Indian food and culture.
It covers the major tragedies that transformed the Gandhi family, including the death of Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash, Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991.
The memoir also delves into political events surrounding the Congress-led alliance’s victory in the 2004 elections, when Sonia Gandhi declined to become prime minister and instead led the party and its alliance, which governed India for a decade.
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