"Madam Is Busy": When Sonia Gandhi Kept Najma Heptulla Waiting For An Hour Over Call From Berlin
NDTV
Sonia Gandhi's idea of communication was a "sharp and serious departure from the earlier Congress culture", Najma Heptulla says
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 staff told her that "Madam is busy".
The former deputy chairperson of Rajya Sabha, who had left the Congress after reported differences with Ms Gandhi and joined the BJP in 2004, mentions this incident in her just-released autobiography "In Pursuit of Democracy: Beyond Party Lines".
Ms Heptulla 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".
