Sonia Gandhi's Phone Call to Vajpayee Marks Turning Point in Her Political Journey

During the terrorist attack on Parliament House on 13 December 2001, as explosions and gunshots rang out, a panic-stricken Sonia Gandhi called the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and asked about his safety. Sonia Gandhi wrote in her book, Belonging: A Journey of Love, that Vajpayee assured her that he was safe at home. Later, she wrote to many of her colleagues, "Appreciating that I was the first to call, Sonia Gandhi." She recalled the cordial conversation between the two leaders of the opposing parties. Sonia Gandhi, who had entered politics in 1999, was the leader of the opposition at the time. For her, standing up to the leaders of the ruling BJP coalition was quite an intimidating experience, as these leaders had long seen her as "the foreign-born daughter-in-law of the Nehru-Gandhi family." Almost four months after that conversation with the Prime Minister, the Sangh leader, soft-spoken in Hindi, had turned into a politician-turned-politician.