Rahul Gandhi born 19 June 1970) is the Vice President of the Indian National Congress party and the Chairperson of the Indian Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India. Gandhi served as a General Secretary in the All India Congress Committee and represents Amethi as its Member of Parliament (MP). He is the second-ranked member of the Congress Working Committee.[1]Gandhi comes from the politically influential Nehru–Gandhi family. His late father, Rajiv Gandhi, had served as the Prime Minister of India and had been President of the Congress Party. His mother Sonia Gandhi is currently serving as President of the Congress. He grew up in New Delhi, where his grandmother Indira Gandhi, was serving as Prime Minister until her assassination in 1984. His father was likewise assassinated in 1991.
Due to security concerns, Gandhi constantly had to shift schools in his
youth. He studied abroad under a pseudonym, his identity being known
only to a select few including university officials and security
agencies.[2]
After obtaining degrees in international relations and philosophy at the universities of Rollins and Cambridge, Gandhi worked at the Monitor Group, a management consulting firm in London, before establishing the Mumbai–based technology outsourcing firm, Backops Services Private Ltd.
In 2004, Gandhi re-entered public life; he ran for and won his father's
old seat of Amethi in India's national legislature. A few years later,
in 2007, Gandhi was elected as the General Secretary of the Congress
party, a previously executive post held by his father, and by his
great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru. Once described as a youth icon, Gandhi is the leader of the Indian Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India.[3]
Amidst calls from Congress party veterans for his greater involvement
in party politics and national government, Gandhi was elected Congress
Vice President in 2013
Early life and career
Rahul Gandhi was born in Delhi on 19 June 1970,[4] as the first of the two children of Rajiv Gandhi, who later became the Prime Minister of India, and Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, who later became President of Indian National Congress, and as the grandson of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He is also the great-grandson of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Priyanka Vadra is his younger sister[5] and Robert Vadra is his brother-in-law. Rahul Gandhi attended St. Columba's School, Delhi[6][dead link] before entering The Doon School in Dehradun (Uttarakhand) from 1981–83. Meanwhile, his father had joined politics and became the Prime Minister on 31 October 1984 when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Due to the security threats faced by Indira Gandhi's family from Sikh extremists, Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka were home-schooled thereafter.[7]
Rahul Gandhi joined St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1989 for his undergraduate education but moved to Harvard University after he completed the first year examinations.[2] In 1991, after Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by LTTE[8] during an election rally, he shifted to Rollins College due to security concerns and completed his B.A. in 1994.[9]
During this period, he assumed the pseudonym Raul Vinci and his
identity was known only to the university officials and security
agencies.[2][10] He further went on to obtain an M.Phil from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1995.[11] After graduation, Rahul Gandhi worked at the Monitor Group, a management consulting firm, in London.[12] In 2002 he was one of the directors of Mumbai-based technology outsourcing firm Backops Services Private Ltd.[13]
Political career
In March 2004, Rahul Gandhi announced his entry into politics by
announcing that he would contest the May 2004 elections, standing for
his father's former constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha, India's lower house of Parliament.[14] The seat had been held by his mother until she transferred to the neighbouring seat of Rae Bareilly. The Congress had been doing poorly in Uttar Pradesh, holding only 10 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state at the time.[15] At the time, this move generated surprise among political commentators, who had regarded his sister Priyanka
as being the more charismatic and likely to succeed. It generated
speculation that the presence of a young member of India's most famous
political family would reinvigorate the Congress party's political
fortunes among India's youthful population[16]
In his first interview with foreign media, Rahul Gandhi portrayed
himself as a uniter of the country and condemned "divisive" politics in
India, saying that he would try to reduce caste and religious tensions.[14]
Rahul Gandhi won, retaining the family stronghold with a margin of over 100,000.[17] Until 2006 he held no other office.[18]Rahul Gandhi and his sister, who is married to Robert Vadra, managed their mother's campaign for re-election to Rae Bareilly in 2006, which was won easily with a margin greater than 400,000 votes.[19]
He was a prominent figure in the Congress campaign for the 2007 Uttar
Pradesh Assembly elections; Congress, however, won only 22 seats with
8.53% of votes.[20]Rahul Gandhi was appointed General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee on 24 September 2007 in a reshuffle of the party secretariat.[21] In the same reshuffle, he was also given charge of the Indian Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India.[22]
In 2008, senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily mentioned “Rahul-as-PM”
idea when the PM of India Manmohan Singh was still abroad.[23]
In July 2012, Union Law Minister, Salman Khurshid stated that Rahul Gandhi should provide a "new ideology" to meet the present day challenges, the Congress party was facing.[24]On 19 January 2013, in a party conclave of AICC,
Rahul Gandhi formally took charge of Congress Vice President. He was
elevated to the post of Vice President at the party's Jaipur conclave.[25] As vice-president, he is second only to party President and his mother Sonia Gandhi.[26]On 27 September 2013, Rahul Gandhi surprised everyone by openly
criticizing Prime Minister of India and his government for coming out
with an ordinance to undo the effect of the order passed by Hon'ble
Supreme Court of India by which convicted criminals could not contest
election.[27]His rise to the top of the Congress Party has not been without controversy. As a member of the Nehru–Gandhi family, many, such as his political opponents in the BJP and AAP see him as a symbol of dynastic politics in the Congress Party.[28]
Youth politics
In September 2007 when he was appointed general secretary in charge of the Indian Youth Congress
(IYC) and the National Students Union of India (NSUI), Rahul Gandhi
promised to reform youth politics. In his attempt to prove himself thus,
in November 2008 Rahul Gandhi held interviews at his 12, Tughlak Lane
residence in New Delhi to handpick at least 40 people who will make up
the think-tank of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), an organisation that
he has been keen to transform since he was appointed general secretary
in September 2007.[29]Under Rahul Gandhi, IYC and NSUI has seen a dramatic increase in members from two lakhs to twenty five lakhs.[30] The Indian Express
wrote in 2011, "Three years later, as another organisational reshuffle
is in the offing, Rahul’s dream remains unrealised with party veterans
manipulating internal elections in the Youth Congress and a host of
people with questionable background gaining entry into it."[31]
2009 elections
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections,
Rahul Gandhi retained his Amethi seat by defeating his nearest rival by
a margin of over 333,000 votes. Rahul Gandhi was credited with the
Congress revival in Uttar Pradesh where they won 21 out of the total 80
Lok Sabha seats.[32]
He spoke at 125 rallies across the country in six weeks. The nation
wide elections defied the predictions made by pre-poll predictions and
exit polls and gave a clear mandate to the incumbent Congress government
(80 seats gained).
Land acquisition protests arrest
On 11 May 2011, Rahul Gandhi was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police at Bhatta Parsaul village after he turned out in support of agitating farmers demanding more compensation for their land being acquired for a highway project.[33]
2012 Assembly elections
Rahul Gandhi campaigned during the 2012 Assembly elections in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh election
for almost two months, holding 200 rallies. However Congress emerged as
the fourth party in the state, winning 28 seats, an increase of six
seats from the previous 2007 elections. Out of the 15 seats in the Amethi parliamentary constituency, Congress won 2 of the 15 seats.[34][35]Congress activists defended the result in Uttar Pradesh, saying
"there’s a big difference between state elections and national polls"[citation needed],
and pointing out the turn around attributed to Rahul Gandhi in the 2009
Lok Sabha national elections in the state. However, Rahul Gandhi
publicly accepted responsibility for the result in an interview after
the result was declared.[36]In the Gujarat assembly elections
held later in the year, Gandhi was not made the head of the election
campaign. This was seen and regarded by opponents as an admission of
defeat and was termed as a tactic to avoid blame of defeat.[37][38][39] Congress won 57 seats in the assembly of 182, which was 2 less than the previous elections in 2007. Later in bypolls, Congress lost 4 more seats to BJP.
.[1]
0 Comments