'Madam is busy': Najma says Sonia Gandhi kept her waiting for 1 hour

NEW DELHI: After being elected president of the Inter- Parliamentary Union (IPU) in 1999, Najma Heptulla rang up the then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi from Berlin to convey the news, but had to hold the phone line for an hour as the staff told her that "Madam is busy".
The former deputy chairperson of Rajya Sabha, who left Congress after reported differences with Gandhi and joined BJP in 2004, mentions this incident in her recently-released autobiography 'In Pursuit of Democracy: Beyond Party Lines'. She says the IPU presidency was a "historic first and a great honour, marking the pinnacle of my journey from the Indian parliament to the world parliamentary stage".
First, she called PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and he received her call instantly. "When he heard the news, he was delighted, first because the honour had come to India, and second, it had come to an Indian Muslim woman. He said, 'You come back and we will celebrate.' I could also connect to the V-P's office instantly," she writes.
When she "rang up Sonia Gandhi, Congress party president and my leader, one of her staff first said, 'Madam is busy.' When I pointed out I was calling from Berlin, an international call, he just said, 'Please hold the line.' I waited for one full hour. Sonia never came on the line to speak to me".
According to Heptulla, at that time, Rahul and Priyanka were not in politics. "Our leader's behaviour was counter to the best practices and principles of collaboration that had evolved in Congress over many decades," she says about Sonia's leadership. Heptulla says Sonia's idea of communication was a "sharp and serious departure from the earlier Congress culture". "Indira Gandhi used to keep an open house. She was accessible to the rank-and-file members," she writes. PTI