Rahul Gandhi :: The Future of India

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Rahul Gandhi :: The Future of India

[shikha_sharma]

The rise of Rahul Gandhi



Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is India's most-talked about young politician, as much for who he is today as for who he'll be in the future.

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Politics in his blood



The Amethi MP was born in a family of political heavyweights and represents the fourth generation of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Mr Gandhi is the son of late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the grandson of Indira Gandhi and Feroze Gandhi.

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Early years



His grandmother's assassination brought home tragedy. And security concerns. Rahul's early education was at the Doon School in Dehradun, but after Indira Gandhi's death, sister Priyanka and Rahul had to be home-schooled.

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Going places



Rahul joined St Stephen's College in Delhi, moved to Harvard in the USA after his first year and eventually obtained an M.Phil from Trinity College, Cambridge, England.

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Scarred by terror



Violent tragedy struck again. This time father Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. Rahul Gandhi was just shy of his 21st birthday. The Gandhi family's security became a top concern once again.

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The entrepreneur



Politics wasn't Rahul's first choice. After his M.Phil at Cambridge in 1995, he spent the next three years working at the Monitor Group management consulting firm in London. By 2002, he was an entrepreneur, running his own strategy consultancy in Mumbai

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Reluctant politician?



For many years, it was younger sister Priyanka who hogged the limelight as a natural Gandhi heir. But it was Rahul who eventually joined politics. He fought the Lok Sabha elections from his father's former constituency Amethi, and won his first election by over one lakh votes.

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His discovery of India



Mr Gandhi was appointed Congress general secretary in 2007. Next year, he began a self-styled "discovery" of India. He broke bread at homes where two meals a day were a luxury, spent nights with Dalit families & famously raised the plight of Kalavati, a debt-ridden farmer's widow, in Parliament.

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Revival? Or flash in the pan?



Uttar Pradesh has been the Ground Zero of Mr Gandhi's strategy to revive the Congress. In the 2009 general elections, he tantalised the Congress, handing it 22 out of 80 seats, its best show in years. The Congress celebrated his coming of age as a politician.