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Revision as of 03:56, 13 June 2006
Rahul Gandhi (born June 19, 1970) is a rising Indian politician and member of the Parliament of India from the Indian National Congress.
Family Roots
Rahul Gandhi is a member of the Nehru-Gandhi political family, the son of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Indian National Congress, and Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1991 by Sri Lankan Tamil militants. He was only 14 when his grand-mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by Sikh militants in 1984. His great-grandfather was Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister and a distinguished leader of the national freedom struggle.
Education
Rahul Gandhi attended St. Columba's School in New Delhi. He was later home-schooled for security reasons. He admission to St. Stephen's College was controversial as he was alleged to have misued his position and claimed admission under sports quota. He is listed as attending Harvard between 1990 and 1993 but never completed a degree. It was later claimed that he transferred due to security concerns to another university in Massachusetts where he completed a B.A., but this other university has never been named. During the parliamentary elections in 2004, Gandhi claimed that he had received an MPhil. in Development Economics after attending Trinity College, Cambridge University (media enquiries report that he attended under the alias "Rahul Vinci"). He worked as in London with the strategy consultancy firm Monitor Group, before he returned to India in 2002 to start a software company. Most of his life is opaque to public enquiry. For reasons that are open to speculations, there have never been an effort to refute this from the Congress Party or from his family.
Political career
Although, his mother had been the Congress President and Leader of the Opposition since 1998, Gandhi had showed little interest in politics. In 2003, there was widespread media speculation about his imminent entry into national politics; this was not discouraged. Appearing with his mother at public events and Congress meetings, Rahul also went to Pakistan on a goodwill visit to watch a historic Cricket Test match between the two nations. In May 2004, he ran for the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, from his father's constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and won by a wide margin. 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 group of young members of parliament, all sons of distinguished Congressmen.
Since then, Gandhi has sought to cultivate support from young Indians by carefully working up his profile through the media and staying away from the scandals of coalition politics. 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 grooming him for the top job, the office of Prime Minister, which she renounced for herself.
Among many of the reasons speculated, one is that he and his sister Priyanka Gandhi convinced their mother not to take the PM seat.
External links
- http://www.rahulgandhi.com Unofficial Site of Rahul Gandhi
- http://rahulgandhi.8k.com Unofficial Site of Rahul Gandhi
- http://www.rahulgandhi.net Unofficial Site of Rahul Gandhi