Perhaps the Union home ministry should have spoken to Rajamma Vavathil before virtually asking Rahul Gandhi whether he is British or Indian.

If the retired nurse gets to meet Rahul — or the home ministry official who drafted the notice that asked the Congress president to clarify the “factual position” on his citizenship — she would say how she had held him in her arms in a Delhi hospital even before his mother had.

The chances of Rajamma meeting Rahul are higher than an encounter with the home ministry mandarin. She lives in Wayanad, the very same place from where the Congress leader is contesting the Lok Sabha election this time, besides Amethi.

Rajamma, 72, remembers not just cradling the newborn at the labour room of Delhi’s Holy Family Hospital but the date too: June 19, 1970.

“Each of us in the labour room held the Prime Minister’s (Indira Gandhi) grandson in our arms with great pride,” she told The Telegraph on Thursday. “I don’t need to tell you how excited the team was.”

Since Holy Family was the preferred hospital for most members of the diplomatic corps in Delhi, Rajamma was familiar with “handling” VVIPs.

“We all realised the significance of having the Prime Minister’s daughter-in-law in the labour room,” she said.

“The family, including Sonia Gandhi, were extremely cooperative with the hospital staff. None threw their weight around.”

She said that Rajiv Gandhi had stood in the waiting area with his brother Sanjay although the hospital had cleared him to enter the labour room.

“Sonia seemed a simple person and was very cooperative. We didn’t face any pressure although we were handling a VVIP,” Rajamma said. “Even the Prime Minister ensured that her visits did not cause any disturbance.”

Rajamma’s stint at the hospital came to an early end: she married a soldier, Vavathil Rajappan, in 1971 and later joined the army. She rose to lieutenant but took voluntary retirement in 1987 and returned to Kerala.

Rajamma now lives in retirement with her husband at Kalloor village near Sultan Batheri, Wayanad, while her daughter and grandchildren are settled in Kuwait.

“She is ‘mummy’ to all of us here,” her neighbour P.C. Assainar, a local Congress activist, said.

Asked how she had felt when the Congress announced Rahul’s candidature from Wayanad, Rajamma said: “I was simply surprised.”

Although she is about Sonia’s age, Rajamma likes to think of Rahul as her “grandson”.

When Rahul filed his nomination on April 4 in Kalpetta, 40-odd kilometres from Kalloor, a “dazed” Rajamma hadn’t thought of meeting him.

When the Congress president visited Sultan Batheri on April 17, she had been away, touring Malaysia and Singapore.

“I will meet my grandson the next time he comes even if no one helps me,” she sounded confident. Assainar has already put in a word for her with his party’s leadership.

Rajamma stressed that she was not involved with any political party and had no axe to grind in seeking to meet him.

“I want to meet him since I see him as my grandson. As a person who saw him and held him before anyone from his own family, I want to tell him about the moments after he was born and the cheer in the labour room,” she said.

“I need nothing from him --- I’m leading a good life. I won’t take up any local issues at my first meeting with him, either,” she said.

Rajamma therefore hopes she can meet Rahul a second time too, when she might tell him that Wayanad needs better medical facilities, in particular a super-speciality hospital so its residents don’t need to travel 80km to Kozhikode.