Sonia Gandhi is the longest-serving president of the Congress party, which has governed India during most of its post-Independence decades. She was born in Italy, and educated at Cambridge University, where she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was then the son of prime minister Indira Gandhi. The two married in 1968.
After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, during campaigning for that year’s general elections, Sonia Gandhi initially stayed away from politics, but in 1998, she was chosen as the president of the Congress party. Under her leadership, in 2004, a Congress-led coalition came to power at the Centre. She famously declined to be prime minister — her foreign birth had become a politically controversial issue — and instead chose the economist Manmohan Singh. She was then named the chairperson of the coalition, which was called the United Progressive Alliance or the UPA.
Sonia Gandhi won her first Lok Sabha election in 1999, representing Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, a family stronghold. From 2004, she has represented Rae Bareli as an MP in the Lok Sabha. In 2024, she announced she was contesting elections from the Rajya Sabha, the indirectly elected house of Parliament, signalling her stepping back from electoral politics.
Finally a balanced article!! One of reasons Priyanka is able to enthuse congress workers is that she can speak coherently in both Hindi and English without sounding like a tuta record. Her brother is tolerated because he is Gandhi and congress workers in their heart of hearts know that the masses will always see him as a prized idiot and he will not be able to deliver. So hence the over enthusiasm for Priyanka overlooking suspect tract record!
This seems to be a desperate political bluff of the part of Congress, a poor third in the UP politics. With SP-BSP alliance the die is cast and both Mayawati and Akhilesh are shrewd and experienced politicians . They are sure to call the bluff.
She is mother to two children who will carry the flame forward. That is incredibly precious for a family now in its fifth generation of eminence.