NEW DELHI: M L Fotedar, an aide of former PM Indira Gandhi, has claimed that Rahul Gandhi’s leadership would face a serious challenge within the party.

In his book, Fotedar said along with Rahul, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi too would face in-house opposition.

“History is threatening to repeat itself. It is a matter of time before Sonia’s and Rahul’s leadership is challenged from within the party. I will be observing closely, because Sonia is not Indira and Rahul is not Sanjay,” he said in his soon-to-be-released memoirs, according to agency reports.

The veteran Congressman dubbed Rahul a reluctant politician like his father Rajiv Gandhi, but said he had “limitations” because he was not groomed for the top job unlike his father who was trained by Indira herself.

In his book, Fotedar is critical of Sonia, claiming she lacked skills in political management and her obsession with promoting Rahul had created problems in Congress as it led to people around her working at cross purposes. Fotedar claimed Rahul had a “certain stubbornness” and his motivation to become a leader was “not very strong”.

“Rahul’s leadership is unacceptable to the people of this country and Sonia has her best years behind her. The party has no one to provide direction. It refuses to learn… It has made wrong choices while appointing opposition leaders in both Houses of Parliament. It has made wrong choices about how to deal with the challenges in assembly elections. It saddens me that the Nehru-Indira legacy has reached a cul-de-sac,” he said.

“People around Sonia secretly did not wish him to succeed because they realised that if Rahul grew as a leader, they would themselves become irrelevant,” Fotedar said. “The dilemma before Sonia was that on the one hand she could not do without her coterie while on the other she had an overriding desire to see her son succeed in politics.”

He said, sycophants around the leadership created an impression that increase in party seats in 2009 elections was because of Rahul. “Sonia allowed this perception to gain ground, thereby denying due credit to Manmohan Singh. It was abundantly clear that Sonia had made up her mind to foist Rahul on the party and the country,” he said.