"Everyone knew that Sonia Gandhi was India's real prime minister right from the moment in 2004 that Dr Manmohan Singh was chosen as her proxy, but her friends in the media – and their ranks were legion – continued to perpetuate the lie that she never interfered in policy. Ministers openly defied the prime minister and still they pretended that India had a real government instead of one appointed by someone whose only political qualification was that she married into a certain family. Editors who would tear government policies to shreds in their columns would never blame them on 10 Janpath. Sonia became as powerful as she did, and without any accountability, with the media playing an insidious, irresponsible role. When I asked famous TV anchors and colleagues in the print media why they accepted so compliantly her absolute refusal to give interviews they had no answers, but later I discovered that they had private access not just to her but to her children. This was enough to keep them quiet. In my own case I continued to point out every instance of direct interference by Sonia in government policy and was reviled for it. And because I was in a minority of one I soon became a target. After Shekhar Gupta resigned from the editorship of the Indian Express he told me that she had personally asked him to stop my column on the grounds of what I wrote against her."