Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajasthan president Madan Rathore on 11 November hit out at Sonia Gandhi's memoir, calling it 'contradictory and inappropriate' to criticise Sanjay Gandhi posthumously when the Congress family had, according to Rathore, operated under the very system he established during his lifetime. Rathore's remarks came from Jaipur and also targeted Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge over remarks the BJP leader described as religiously insensitive.

Rathore's Core Charge Against the Sonia Gandhi Memoir

Reacting sharply to references made about Sanjay Gandhi in Sonia Gandhi's recently published memoir, Rathore argued that it was unjust to hold Sanjay Gandhi solely accountable for the excesses of the Emergency. He alleged that Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi had all functioned within the political framework that Sanjay Gandhi had put in place while he was alive.

'If it is being claimed that Sanjay Gandhi was indirectly running the government, it raises an even more serious question about Indira Gandhi's leadership. She was the Prime Minister, yet someone else was allegedly calling the shots,' Rathore said.

He maintained that criticising Sanjay Gandhi's reputation and legacy after his death, while having benefited from the system he built, amounted to a fundamental contradiction.

Emergency: A 'Collective Decision', Says Rathore

Rathore described the Emergency — imposed from 1975 to 1977 — as one of the darkest chapters in India's democratic history, and insisted it was not the responsibility of any single individual. He alleged that Indira Gandhi, as Prime Minister, was accountable for undermining democracy, curtailing press freedom, and subjecting young people to forced sterilisation during that period.

He further alleged that people who raised slogans such as 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' were jailed during the Emergency. Rathore questioned how Indira Gandhi could now — through her daughter-in-law's account — absolve herself of responsibility by attributing decisions to a single individual.

Rathore Takes Aim at Kharge Over Festival Remarks

Separately, Madan Rathore criticised Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge over remarks in which Kharge allegedly compared a Hindu festival with Eid. Rathore said the comments reflected a lack of sensitivity towards religious sentiments, adding that every festival carries its own significance and cultural context within the respective community.

He suggested it would have been more appropriate for Kharge to confine his comments to the relevant context rather than make statements that appeared, in Rathore's view, aimed at appeasing a particular community. Rathore also referred to what he described as atrocities allegedly suffered by Kharge's own family, using it to question the consistency of the Congress president's public statements.

Political Context and What It Signals

Sonia Gandhi's memoir has stirred fresh debate about the Gandhi family's internal dynamics during the Emergency era, a period that continues to carry significant political weight in India. The BJP has historically used the Emergency legacy as a critique of the Congress, and Rathore's response fits a broader pattern of the ruling party seeking to contextualise historical accountability within the entire Gandhi family rather than a single member.

This is not the first time the Emergency has resurfaced as a political flashpoint — references to it have periodically re-entered mainstream political discourse, particularly ahead of election cycles or when Congress leaders make public statements on that period. How the Congress responds to these charges, and whether the memoir's contents become a sustained campaign issue, will shape the next phase of this political exchange.