When Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980 — in the election that marked her political rehabilitation after the Emergency — she won both seats she had contested. She retained Medak in Andhra Pradesh and fielded her nephew ARUN NEHRU from Rae Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. That election marked the political debut for Nehru, then freshly retired as president, Jenson & Nicholson, and still in his 30s. Nehru went on to become a close — and controversial — aide to Mrs Gandhi and later her son Rajiv when he became prime minister. He subsequently fell out with Rajiv, taking him on under the umbrella of the Jan Morcha along with V.P. Singh. In an interview with VANDITA MISHRA, Nehru recalls the experience of working with Indira Gandhi, his aunt and prime minister, from 1980 till her assassination in 1984. 

What do you recall of the days before the assassination? 

I was the last person to meet Mrs Gandhi on the night of October 30. I had come back late at night from Rae Bareilly. General elections were due in the country and she wanted to see my final list of candidates. For about a week before this, she had been behaving strangely. She had gone to a public meeting in Sultanpur. Rajiv and I were to go on to Gorakhpur. But she asked us not to go, for security reasons. We pooh-poohed her concerns. She called up my wife, asked her to intervene. She had never done this before. Then, she suddenly said she wanted to go to Kashmir, to see the leaves change. The PM couldn’t just take off suddenly, so we had to invent reasons for the visit. In the house, there was constant pressure to change the (Sikh) bodyguards. She had been disturbed ever since Operation Blue Star.

... contd.