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.
Well, they are distributing environment clearances like cheap free pamphlets now. So, go ahead celebrate all the mining in protected forest zones and development projects with zero compensation. The environment is yours to destroy permanently because you won a Lok Sabha election for five years. And very polite, calling Manmohan Singh a super cabinet secretary. To you it might sound like a clever insult you’ve conjured, but it’s just a low level lame joke. I wish Print followed journalism sometimes, and got the people they routinely slander here to give their side of the story. At least, tried. Or is it just a forum for resentful blokes to lash out, now that another government is in power? I can betcha super cabinet secretary did much more solid work than his Royal highness, first prime minister of India in 70 years, Modi – lacks in ideas, lacks in ethics, lacks in democracy. What is wrong if a junior Minister withheld clearances going against PM Singh? India is not some monarchy with the whip and writ of an autocrat. Or atleast wasn’t in those 10 years. But make an effort to interview Jayanthi Natraj some day. Takes more journalistic chops. But do it. Or you are nothing more than Twitter with 28000 characters.
The limitations of being a nominated PM, denied even the courtesy of election to the Lok Sabha from a safe seat, were known to all concerned. However, within those constraints, Dr Singh could and should have done much more, especially on economic reforms, his original fame to claim. Those were high growth years, a conducive environment for unshackling the economy, with sufficient tax buoyancy to sate some of the demands of the NAC. Even on coal and spectrum, Dr Singh, assisted by some senior colleagues like Shri Pranab Mukherjee, could have sensitised the party president, whose family had been scarred by Bofors, to the dangers that lay ahead. Over the course of a decade, Dr Singh could have carved out a larger space for himself , using the institution of the core committee. Towards the close, the comfort of his chair may have forced him to accept many things he should not have.