Sonia Gandhi has not seen 'horrific' photo of Rajiv's remains taken after assassination: Book

New Delhi: More than three decades after former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has still not seen the photograph of her husband's remains taken in the aftermath of the explosion.

In her tell-all memoir, "Belonging: A Journey of Love", former Congress president Sonia Gandhi says her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra deliberately kept the image from her, instructing their staff not to hand her any newspaper or magazine without vetting it.

"Rahul and Priyanka had given the staff instructions that no newspaper or magazine was to be given to me directly. Everything had to be vetted by them.


"They were shielding me from the horrific image of their slain father that had been published in our print media and would be reprinted again and again," she said.

Sonia Gandhi goes on to say that she had "become a child" to be protected by Rahul and Priyanka, "the parents", whose care for their mother brought them to shield her.

"To this day, more than thirty years later, I have not seen the picture of Rajiv's remains after the explosion," the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) president wrote.

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, when an LTTE woman suicide bomber pretending to offer him a garland detonated explosives strapped to her body in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, during an election rally, killing him and 14 others nearby.