Take charge when I die, Indira Gandhi told Rahul Gandhi

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Former prime minister Indira Gandhi valued Rahul Gandhi’s “grit and determination” and often considered him mature enough to be taken into confidence on subjects she avoided discussing even with his parents when he was barely 14, according to a new book.

 In his book “Leaders, Politicians, Citizens”, in which he compiles stories of 50 personalities who influenced India’s political landscape, author-journalist Rasheed Kidwai also recounts the harrowing hours after Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the close bonds between the Gandhis and the Bachchans.

 Soon after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in October 1984, he writes, Arun Nehru, a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, arrived at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to see a hysterical Sonia Gandhi fearful for the lives of her children Rahul and Priyanka.

 Sonia Gandhi kept telling him that Indira Gandhi had always feared a repeat of the assassination of Mujib-ur-Rahman, the towering Bangladeshi leader up to three generations of whose had been wiped out, according to the book.   Arun Nehru then took the children to the Gulmohar Park residence of Teji Bachchan, actor Amitabh Bachchan’s mother.