New Delhi, Jul 16 (India Today) : Congress veteran Margaret Alva today accused her boss Sonia Gandhi of running the party "arbitrarily" and claimed she was often told by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he wanted her in his Cabinet, but the Congress president did not allow it.

"The decision making in the Congress is very centralised," Alva told Karan Thapar in India Today TV's show, To The Point. She made a series of damning charges against Sonia and other senior Congress leaders in her interview with Thapar.

Alva was sacked in 2008 because she had raised the issue of Congress tickets being sold in the run-up to the Assembly election in Karnataka. "I paid the price for saying the tickets were being sold," she said, adding that she was reprimanded by Sonia for speaking out before the Karnataka polls.

After the Assembly election in Karnataka in November 2008 - which the Congress lost giving the BJP its first ever government in a southern state - Alva had alleged that seats were open to bidders rather than subject to merit. The Congress denied the claims, forcing Alva to resign from the party.

The two patched up later and Alva went on to become the governors of Rajasthan and Uttarakhand when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister during the UPA regime.

Although the contents of her 2008 resignation letter remained a subject of media speculation for a long time, it is for the first time that Alva has revealed the details of the letter in a new book, 'Courage and Commitment', on her days with the Congress.

The book, Alva says, reveals untold stories about her sacking, Sonia's "arbitrary functioning", Sonia's relations with Narasimha Rao, and even details on VVIP chopper scam accused Christian Michel's father's alleged links with Indira Gandhi's son Sanjay and other senior Congress leaders.

Incidentally, earlier this month Alva was made the member of a Congress panel to help improve the synergy between the party and the government in Karnataka, which the Congress currently rules.