Gandhi believed so long as Rao remained in power, the probe into her husband's death would reach nowhere, Thomas says in the book.
"Her conviction was some other agency might have masterminded the murder and engineered it through LTTE. It was circumstances which pushed Sonia into politics. How could she remain witness when the edifices of the party were crumbling," he says.
Writing in a daily last week, Natwar Singh recalls from his diary notings of May 13, 1995 when Rao called him to his Race Course Residence at night.
"Around 9 PM P.V. walked in, he did not sit down. The normally imperturbable P.V. appeared flummoxed and agitated: 'I have just received her letter to me?' I said I have not seen it. The two were apparently having an epistolary war regarding the trial of Rajiv Gandhi's assassins."
Singh says what Rao said next was so unexpected that he was dumbfounded. "I cannot take her on. I could. I don't want to. What does she expect me to do?" the former prime minister had said.
