Rahul Gandhi biography, Indian Politician

Rahul Gandhi (born June 19, 1970) is a young Indian politician, a rising member of the Indian National Congress.

Gandhi is the son of Sonia Gandhi, the powerful Congress President and wife of the late Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister (also the youngest) who was assassinated in 1991 by Tamil militants. Rahul was only 14, when earlier, his grand-mother, also Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh militants in 1984. His great-grandfather was Jawaharlal Nehru, the distinguished leader of the national freedom struggle and the first Prime Minister of Bharat. Thus Rahul Gandhi is the scion of Bharat's most powerful political family, a legacy filled with history, charisma, power, drama and trauma.

Although educated at The Doon School, as well as St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, Harvard and Trinity College, Cambridge, Rahul, like his father, uncle and grandmother, attended university without completing a degree. He worked as a financial consultant in London, before he returned to Bharat in 2002 to start a software company. An outdoors man and sports-lover, Rahul has a young Colombian girlfriend.

Although since 1998 his mother has been the Congress President and Leader of the Opposition, Rahul showed little interest or involvement in politics But late in 2003 he began obtaining media coverage, and did not discourage speculation about his arrival in politics. Appearing with his mother in public events and Congress meetings, Rahul also went to Pakistan on a goodwill visit to watch historic cricket between the two nations. In May 2004, he contested and won by a wide margin a seat in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament from the Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh where so many of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty have established their political careers. His campaign was directed by his younger sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and his victory generated considerable media excitement and enthusiasm amongst the younger citizens of the country. He leads a new coterie of young MPs, all sons of distinguished Congressmen. And with the Congress Party in power, leader of a coalition government, Gandhi's power will only expand.

Gandhi is cultivating support from young Indians by working up the media's hypes, and becoming an aggressive, though perceivably arrogant politician. He stays away from the scandals of coalition politics and major national issues, and although he holds no other office and concentrates mainly on constituency issues and the politics of Uttar Pradesh, it is widely speculated that Congress President Sonia Gandhi is quietly grooming him for the top job, the office of Prime Minister, which she renounced for herself. It is predicted that Rahul will soon control a major executive post within the Congress Party or a Cabinet portfolio. It is also possible, but impropable, that he may lead the Congress Party in the next elections, possibly by 2008 or 2009. He will then be 38 or 39, just as his father was 40 when he rose to the PM's office.

Indian Political History