The 2014 Lok Sabha polls decimated the Congress. But an even greater disaster struck the party on Wednesday when in one fell stroke, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh sought to strip Sonia Gandhi of her halo and topple her from the high pedestal she had been occupying since she refused to be prime minister in 2004.

Singh’s revelation that she did not take up the post because of her son Rahul Gandhi’s fears that she might get killed just like his father Rajiv or grandmother Indira Gandhi has undermined her claim that she had rejected it because of her "inner voice."

Exposing the lie of renunciation

Singh’s disclosure is a body blow that has left the Congress president vulnerable and the party reeling. After 10 years, it is now a he said-she said situation, Sonia’s version of events pitted against that of her former confidante with whom she fell out nine years back over his alleged involvement in the food-for-oil scandal.

If Singh’s claims are taken into account, it would appear that Sonia’s move was dictated not by her conscience but by Rahul who threatened to do whatever it took to stop her from becoming PM and even set a 24-hour ultimatum for her to refuse the post.

"He was very adamant," Singh said, recalling a May 18, 2004 meeting where Priyanka Vadra conveyed Rahul’s views to Manmohan Singh, Gandhi family friend Suman Dubey and him. "As a son, full marks to Rahul," Singh told Karan Thapar in his interview on Headlines Today ahead of the release of his book "One Life is Not Enough: An Autobiography."

Suffering from a son-stroke, the politician in Sonia would seem to have had no option but to bow to her motherly instincts. Even that would not have mattered but for the fact that she credited her decision to forego the high office to her "inner voice’’ and was for the next 10 years even hailed in some sections as another Mother Teresa for her "sacrifice’’ while all that time she had actually been just mother Sonia acquiescing to her son’s pressure. Even more damaging was that she and her party ---as well as Singh who has now chosen to divulge what he says is the "truth’’ --- had let this perception perpetuate without making any effort to set the record straight.

This perception allowed Sonia to pole-vault from a green horn politician into a statesmanlike figure who stood taller than all her jostling contemporaries and generated a groundswell of support for her that, along with the performance of UPA-I, stood her in good stead in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Both Sonia and the Congress drew sustenance from and politically profited from her "renunciation."

If Singh’s latest revelation gathers steam, it could erode the Congress president’s image, credibility and authority. And Sonia’s critics--- who had at that time dismissed her "sacrifice" as a farce--- are unlikely to keep quiet about it or the revelation that government files would be taken to her by Pulok Chatterjee, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, when the UPA was in power.

What Natwar reveals about Rahul

Until now, of the trinity of Sonia-Manmohan-Rahul, she alone had survived the 10 years of UPA at the Centre with her image more or less intact. Price rise, inflation, allegations of corruption and paralysis in decision-making took a toll on Manmohan Singh. Rahul was seen as half a leader and a shirker of responsibilities who, barring a stray victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls in UP, failed in every task he undertook, including in spearheading the party’s campaign in the assembly elections in Gujarat, UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh or the recent Lok Sabha polls.

Natwar Singh's tell-all book now casts a shadow on Sonia.

There are other corollaries that can be drawn from Singh’s revelations some of which will add to the Congress’s woes.

One, it would appear that Rahul, now party vice president, has been calling the shots right from 2004 when he forced Sonia to refuse the PM’s post. Two, the mother has been in no position to counter the son whose rise in the party has been as rapid as the organisation’s decline. Three, it provides a glimpse of the insecurities and vulnerabilities Rahul associates with power. And if Rahul was fearful of his mother’s life in 2004, he would be equally so vis a vis any Gandhi, including himself, in the next round of general elections in 2019. Indeed, the Amethi MP has often, in his rallies, talked about the assassination of his father and grandmother and how he might also be killed.

Four, Rahul has given enough indication that he is not in the power game, having refused to join the Manmohan Singh cabinet, or replace him as prime minister or even become the leader of his party after the Lok Sabha debacle. Finally, if neither Sonia nor Rahul are interested, many a Congress worker would wonder why he should work to make a non-Gandhi the prime minister and he may as well sit at home or seek another anchor.

The picture couldn’t get more bleak for an electorally mauled party which pegs its past, present and future on the Gandhis, whether in power or out of it.

Given the damage that the revelation about Rahul’s role could inflict, it is not surprising that the Congress president and her daughter Priyanka Vadra met Singh on May 7 at his residence to persuade him not to refer to that episode in his book. But Singh claims he decided to tell the "truth."

It is also not surprising that the Congress party has reacted sharply to Singh’s disclosures. “It is ridiculous. These days it has become fashionable to sensationalize the contents of a book with the sole aim of ensuring better sale and free publicity. This is yet another such exercise. Any comment on it will be a futile exercise,” said AICC general secretary and Communication Department Chairman Ajay Maken in a thinly veiled allusion to Sanjaya Baru’s book "The Accidental Prime Minister" which too had stirred a controversy.

Like Maken other senior Congress leaders like Abhishek Singhvi and Anand Sharma also sought to dismiss Singh’s disclosures without rebutting or denying his remarks.

"Natwar Singh had an unceremonious exit from the UPA government after the Volcker Committee Report on the Oil for Food scandal in 2005. He was later suspended from the Congress Party.

"His recent remarks in a TV interview appear to be politically motivated and aimed at seeking publicity for the sale of his book," charged Singhvi. "It must be taken with a fistful of salt," said Anand Sharma.

The former minister himself was prepared to see his revelations rubbished. "Of course, they will. I am aware they will," Singh said when quizzed on possible denials by Manmohan Singh and Dubey. But he pointedly added: "They could have said it and got away with it if Sonia and Priyanka had not come to me. Period...They did not come to have coffee with me. They did not come to have lunch with me".

Most of the other disclosures made by Singh in the first part of his two part interview are interesting and perhaps even controversial, like the one in which he says that government files would be taken to Sonia—a point made by Baru too in his book. The former Sonia confidante also revealed that Sonia’s first choice as party president and prime minister after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was Shankar Dayal Sharma and not PV Narasimha Rao and that senior UPA allies like Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan were upset at Manmohan Singh being made prime minister when the mandate was for her.

There is little doubt that Singh’s claims could add to the demoralization in the Congress’ ranks. The party has still to get over the trauma of winning only 44 seats in the 545 member Lok Sabha under Rahul who has so far failed to build a worker-voter-people electoral base, and refused to lead the party from the front in Parliament. As ordinary workers despair, they also keep their faith in Sonia to pull them out of the current morass. The Congress’s greatest fear is that even this faith may get shaken by Singh’s tell-all book.