Sonia Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi (Previous: Maino; born: 9 December 1946) is an Indian politician and President of the Indian National Congress Party. She is the wife of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Her term as the President of the Congress is the longest in the history of the party, in which she played a major role in forming the government at the Center in 2004 and 2009. She has made it to the Forbes Most Powerful Women list several times.

Personal life

Sonia was born in Louisiana, a small village located 20 km from Vicenza in the region of Veneto, Italy. Her father, Stefino Maino, was a soldier who died in 1983. Her mother is Paolo Maino. She has two sisters. Her childhood was spent in Orbassano, 4 km from Turin, Italy. In 1964 she went to study the English language at the Bell Academic Fund's language school at the University of Cambridge where she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was then studying at Trinity College Cambridge. Both were married in 1968, after which they started living in India. She accepted Indian citizenship in 1983, 15 years after her marriage with Rajiv Gandhi. They have two children - a son Rahul Gandhi and a daughter Priyanka Vadra.

Political life

After her husband's assassination, senior Congress leaders announced that she would be made the President of Congress without asking Sonia, but Sonia did not accept it and expressed her hatred and mistrust towards politics and politicians in these words, "I will see my children begging, but I will not step into politics." Instead of spending a long time in politics, she focused on raising her son and daughter.

On the other hand, after the prime ministership of PV Narasimha Rao, the Congress also lost the general election of 1996, due to which the Congress leaders again felt the need of a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Under their pressure, Sonia Gandhi took primary membership of the Congress in the plenary session of Kolkata in 1997 and within 62 days she was elected President of the Congress in 1998.

She also tried unsuccessfully to form a government. After joining politics, the issue of her birth abroad was raised. Her weak Hindi was also made an issue. She was also accused of familism but the Congressmen did not leave her and continued to deny these issues.

Sonia Gandhi contested for the Lok Sabha in October 1999 from Bellary, Karnataka as well as her late husband's constituency Amethi, Uttar Pradesh and won by a huge lead of nearly three lakh votes. In the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999, she was elected the Leader of the Opposition.

Before the 2004 elections, a general opinion was made that Atal Bihari Vajpayee would become the Prime Minister, but Sonia did a lot of campaigning across the country and the UPA got more than 200 unexpected seats. Sonia Gandhi herself was elected MP from Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. The Left parties decided to support the Congress and its allies government to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power, thereby completing a clear majority of the Congress and its allies. On May 16, 2004, Sonia Gandhi was elected the leader of the 16-party alliance, which formed the government with the support of the Left parties, whose Prime Minister would be Sonia Gandhi. Everyone expected that Sonia Gandhi would become the Prime Minister and everyone supported her. But NDA leaders objected to Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins. Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharti announced that if Sonia Gandhi became Prime Minister, she would shave her head and sleep on the ground.

On May 18, she called Manmohan Singh her candidate and requested the party to support him and publicized that Sonia Gandhi had voluntarily announced not to become Prime Minister. Congressmen strongly opposed this and requested her to change this decision but she said that it was never her goal to become Prime Minister. All the leaders supported Manmohan Singh and he became the Prime Minister but Sonia was elected as the President of the party and the alliance.

Sonia Gandhi addressed the United Nations on 2 October 2007, the day of Mahatma Gandhi's anniversary. She was again elected the interim President of the Congress Party on 10 August 2019.