‘I Will Have to Come for His Funeral’: Sonia Gandhi Recalls Rahul’s Warning Before Rajiv’s Assassination
Sonia Gandhi recalls Rahul's warning about Rajiv Gandhi's security and revisits the 1991 assassination in her memoir Belonging. (Image Harper Collins on X)
By AMIT KUMAR
In Belonging, Sonia Gandhi revisits the night of May 21, 1991, recalls Rahul’s warning about his father’s security and raises questions about the withdrawal of Rajiv Gandhi’s SPG protection.
New Delhi, November 10, 2026 — More than three decades after Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, Sonia Gandhi has revisited the tragedy through one of the most painful accounts in her memoir Belonging: A Journey of Love.
Among the most disturbing details is a warning that Rahul Gandhi had reportedly given his mother just two months before the assassination.
“If something isn’t done about Pa’s security, I know I’ll soon have to come back for his funeral,” Rahul had told Sonia while accompanying his father on a tour, according to the memoir.
On May 21, 1991, that fear became reality.
Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber during an election campaign event in Sriperumbudur. The attack also killed 14 others in his vicinity.
In an account reported by NDTV from the memoir, Sonia recalls that she was at home when Priyanka rushed towards her room after receiving news of an explosion. At first, Sonia could not understand what her daughter was saying. The urgency and fear in Priyanka’s voice, however, made her realise that something terrible had happened.
Sonia writes that she repeatedly asked whether the news was true. When she eventually received confirmation that Rajiv was dead, she collapsed in grief.
“I should have gone with him,” she recalls crying.
The memoir also raises questions about the security arrangements protecting the former Prime Minister. Sonia writes that Rajiv’s Special Protection Group cover was withdrawn by the V P Singh government in January 1990, despite an earlier committee recommendation that the protection should continue unless a fresh threat assessment warranted a change.
According to her account, no such review was undertaken before the protection was withdrawn and the specialised security arrangement was replaced by local police.
The account also recalls Rahul’s reaction when he was finally informed of his father’s death. According to Sonia, a friend told him there was bad news. Rahul immediately understood what had happened and asked whether his father was dead.
The tragedy was not the first assassination to devastate the family. Indira Gandhi had been killed in October 1984 by her own security personnel. Sonia writes that the fear of losing Rajiv had become a constant presence in their lives after Indira’s assassination.
In an interview with The Guardian, she recalled that her recurring thought was that Rajiv would be killed next.
The memoir therefore does more than revisit a historic assassination. It places the security controversy, the family’s apprehensions and the personal consequences of political violence within the same narrative.
The unanswered questions surrounding Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination continue to carry political and historical significance. Sonia’s account brings the family’s experience back into public discussion, while leaving the larger questions of security responsibility and the full circumstances of the killing to documentary and institutional scrutiny.
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