From getting the year of Ahmed Patel’s death wrong to confusing the Kargil War timeline, Sonia Gandhi’s much-awaited memoir, ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, has landed in controversy over a series of factual inaccuracies, raising questions about the editorial scrutiny of a book documenting some of the most significant events in India’s political history.Released on Tuesday, the memoir contains errors involving the RSS’s founding year, the Anna Hazare movement, Gujarat’s capital, Lok Sabha election results, Rahul Gandhi’s criminal defamation case and major international events.Among the most striking mistakes is the account of the 1999 Kargil conflict. Sonia writes that then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was being hosted by Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad when Ladakhi shepherd Tashi Namgyal spotted Pakistani infiltrators.However, Vajpayee visited Lahore on February 20-21, 1999, while Namgyal spotted the infiltrators on May 3. The memoir also says Indian soldiers recaptured the territory over 10 months, although the conflict ended in July 1999.It further describes the fall of Vajpayee’s government in April 1999 as a defeat on a no-confidence motion. In fact, the government lost a confidence motion by one vote, 269-270.The book also gets key details of Rahul Gandhi’s criminal defamation case wrong. It says the Gujarat High Court sentenced him to two years in prison in 2023 over remarks made three years earlier. The remarks were made in April 2019, and a Surat magistrate’s court convicted him on March 23, 2023.Sonia further writes that Rahul returned to Parliament a year later after the Supreme Court suspended his sentence. The court actually stayed his conviction on August 4, 2023, and his Lok Sabha membership was restored three days later.In Chapter 29, Sonia recalls her close aide Ahmed Patel, writing that he “fell victim to the Covid epidemic in 2022”. Patel died on November 25, 2020, following Covid-related complications.In one of the chapters, she writes, “The RSS, founded in 1921, dreamed of a ‘Hindu nation’”. The organisation was founded by KB Hedgewar in Nagpur on September 27, 1925.Similarly, the memoir places Anna Hazare’s emergence as the face of ‘India Against Corruption’ in 2012. His landmark indefinite fast at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar began on April 5, 2011.The memoir also identifies Ahmedabad as Gujarat’s capital while discussing the 2002 riots, although Gandhinagar has held that status since 1970. It refers to four Sabarmati Express coaches being set ablaze at Godhra, whereas the fatal fire involved coach S-6.Election figures are also mixed up. While correctly recording the BJP’s 282 seats in 2014, the book gives the NDA 353 seats, its 2019 tally, instead of 336. Elsewhere, it gives Congress 405 seats in the 1984 election in one passage and 404 in another.The errors extend to international affairs. Nelson Mandela’s Bharat Ratna visit is dated 1991 instead of 1990, while Vice-President KR Narayanan is wrongly identified as President RK Narayan during Mandela’s 1994 inauguration.The 1985 Commonwealth summit in Nassau is called the 49th instead of the eighth, while Deng Xiaoping is described as China’s president during Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit, although Yang Shangkun held that office.