Crystal Ball/K N Rao

Sonia Gandhi's political career will accelerate in 1998

On April 9, I had predicted, "Sun, the prime minister of the year, is in the eighth house and is close to both Saturn and Venus. It definitely means a change of prime ministers. Somewhere in all this, a mighty woman (Venus) is shaking the throne of the Prime Minister Deve Gowda."

Before last year's general election, I had said a woman would create waves in Indian politics. Everyone wanted to know the identity of this woman; many of them, in fact, went ahead and identified her as Sonia Gandhi. Yet, official sources persistently denied the fact that she would join politics.

Now that she has finally joined the Congress, an astrological debate of more than seven years, in which I have been the target of attack by many astrologers, comes to an end. I win and they lose. Let me recall my battle, stage by stage.

In the early eighties, after Sanjay Gandhi's death, a reporter who had noted the frequency with which Indira Gandhi was visiting Amethi wrote a piece stating the she was grooming that constituency for her first son, Rajiv, whom she wanted to bring into politics. The editor killed the story, reprimanding the reporter for indulging in kite-flying. History proved the reporter's political judgement correct.

Then started the hunt for Rajiv's horoscope. A famous astrologer had given him the Kanya lagna. The rest of us thought he was wrong and stuck to Simha. In 1991, after seven years of awful confusion, he switched over to Simha lagna without even offering an apology.

Everyone had, by now, begun hunting for Sonia's horoscope. Many wild guesses were made. The late Giridharilal Goswami, who had the correct horoscopes of the Gandhi-Nehru family, said that all the horoscopes being used for Sonia were wrong.

Through trial and error, I arrived at a horoscope which even Goswami admitted was correct, except for the fact that the time of birth was off by some minutes.

Since I was a government employee, I refrained from using that horoscope. Instead, I passed it on to a fellow astrologer who, in June 1991, made a wild prediction to the effect that Sonia would run away from India within a month. I was very irritated with him for being so foolish, especially because I knew that Sonia would join politics and head the Congress party.

After retirement from government service in 1990, I have predicted four times that Sonia had an important political career awaiting her.

Now that she has finally joined politics, a high post within the Congress Working Committee will only be the beginning of a career of grace and dignity.

Though 1998 is the year of her destiny, she will still face some perils and controversies. Bofors will not embarrass her much, but she will face a lot of secret opposition; there will be numerous attempts to prevent her from rising higher. Yet, she will overcome it all. From April 1998, her career as a politician will accelerate in leaps and bounds.

Tell us what you think of this column