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Sonia Gandhi
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Early lifeItalyBorn to Stefano and Paola Maino in Lusiana, a little village 50 km from Vicenza, Italy, she spent her adolescence in Orbassano, a town near Turin being raised in a Roman Catholic family and attending a Catholic school. Her father, a building contractor, died in 1983. Her mother and two sisters still live around Orbassano.
UKIn 1964, she went to study English at The Bell Educational Trust's language school in the city of Cambridge. While enrolled in this certificate course she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was enrolled at the time in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge.
IndiaSonia and Rajiv were married in 1969, after which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
The couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi (born 1970) and Priyanka Gandhi (born 1972).
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Early lifeItalyBorn to Stefano and Paola Maino in Lusiana, a little village 50 km from Vicenza, Italy, she spent her adolescence in Orbassano, a town near Turin being raised in a Roman Catholic family and attending a Catholic school. Her father, a building contractor, died in 1983. Her mother and two sisters still live around Orbassano.
UKIn 1964, she went to study English at The Bell Educational Trust's language school in the city of Cambridge. While enrolled in this certificate course she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was enrolled at the time in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge.
IndiaSonia and Rajiv were married in 1969, after which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
The couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi (born 1970) and Priyanka Gandhi (born 1972). Despite the family's heavy involvement in politics (her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, was Prime Minister), Sonia and Rajiv avoided all involvement - Rajiv worked as an airline pilot, and Sonia took care of her family. When Indira was ousted from office in 1977 and when Rajiv entered politics in 1982, Sonia continued to focus on her family and avoided all contact with public. She acquired Indian citizenship in 1983 after 14 years of her marriage.
Political careerWife of the Prime MinisterSonia Gandhi's involvement with Indian public life began after the assassination of her mother-in-law and her husband's election as Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister's wife she acted as his official hostess and also accompanied him on a number of state visits. In 1984, she actively campaigned against her sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi who was running against Rajiv in Amethi. At the end of Rajiv Gandhi's five years in office the Bofors Scandal broke, and Ottavio Quattrocchi an Italian business man believed to be involved, was said to be a friend of Sonia Gandhi, having access to the Prime Minister's official residence.
Congress PresidentFollowing her husband's assassination on May 21, 1991, there was tremendous pressure on her to accept the leadership of the party. However, Sonia refused and was vehement in her denunciation of politics and politicians. She is said to have stated that she would have rather seen her children beg than enter into the maelstrom of Indian political life. After her refusal, the party settled on the choice of P V Narasimha Rao who became leader and subsequently Prime Minister. Over the next few years, however, the Congress fortunes continued to dwindle and it lost the 1996 elections. Several senior leaders such as Madhavrao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot, Mamata Banerjee, G K Moopanar, P.Chidambaram, Jayanthi Natarajan were in open revolt against the incumbent President Sitaram Kesri and quit the party, splitting the Congress into many factions.
In an effort to revive the party's sagging fortunes, she joined the Congress Party as a primary member in the Calcutta Plenary Session in 1997 and became party leader in 1998.
Within 62 days of joining of a primary member, she became the party president - a record for any Indian politician.
She contested Loksabha elections from Bellary, Karnataka in 1999 and Rai Bareli, Uttar Pradesh in 2004. She won both the seats.
In Bellary she defeated veteran BJP leader, Sushma Swaraj.
Leader of the OppositionShe was elected the Leader of the Opposition of the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999.
Despite her party not having a majority, she made the claim to the President that she had the numbers to form the government. However, the final numbers fell short of the halfway mark of 272.
When the BJP-led NDA formed a government under Atal Behari Vajpayee, she took on the office of the Leader of Opposition. As Leader of Opposition she called a no-confidence motion against the NDA government led by Vajpayee in 2003.
She holds a record of serving as Congress President for consecutive 10 years.
2004 elections and aftermathIn the 2004 general elections, Gandhi launched a nationwide campaign, criss-crossing the country on the Aam Aadmi (ordinary man) slogan in contrast to the 'India Shining' slogan of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) alliance. She countered the BJP asking "Who is India Shining for?" In the election, she won by a large margin in the Rae Bareilly constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Following the unexpected defeat of the NDA, she was widely expected to be the next Prime Minister of India. On May 16, she was unanimously chosen to lead a 15-party coalition government with the support of the left, which was subsequently named the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
After the election result, the defeated NDA protested once again her 'foreign origin' and senior NDA leader Sushma Swaraj threatened to shave her head and "sleep on the ground", among other things, should Sonia become prime minister . The NDA also claimed that there were legal reasons that barred her from the Prime Minister's post, and, indeed, from Parliament. They pointed, in particular, to Section 5 of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955, which they claimed implied 'reciprocity'. This was contested by others and eventually the suits were dismissed by the Supreme Court of India.
A few days after the election, Gandhi declined the leadership of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha, and by doing so, rejected the post as prime minister. Her supporters and some in the media compared it to the old Indian tradition of renunciation, while her opponents attacked it as a political stunt. If she had accepted the post, she would have been India's first Roman Catholic prime minister.
While Congress could register wins in her tenure as a Congress president, in states like Haryana and Assam,there was a huge loss of Congress when it lost 11 states, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka in same period.
UPA ChairpersonOn May 18, she recommended noted economist Dr. Manmohan Singh for the Prime Minister's post.
On March 23, 2006, Gandhi announced her resignation from the Lok Sabha and also as chairperson of the National Advisory Council under the office-of-profit controversy and the speculation that the government was planning to bring an ordinance to exempt the post of chairperson of National Advisory Council from the purview of office of profit.She was re-elected from her constituency Rae Bareilly in May 2006 by a huge margin of over 400,000 votes.
As chairperson of the National Advisory Committee and the UPA chairperson, she played an important role in making the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Right to Information Act into law.
She addressed the United Nations on October 2 2007, Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary which is observed as the International day of non-violence after a UN resolution passed on July 15, 2007.
CriticismGandhi's foreign birth has sparked intense debate and opposition. Although Sonia Gandhi is actually the fifth foreign-born person to be leader of the Congress Party, she is the first since independence in 1947 .
There has also been opposition from within the Congress Party, however. In May 1999, three senior leaders of the party challenged her right to try to become India's Prime Minister because of her foreign origins. In response, she offered to resign as party leader, resulting in a massive outpouring of support and the resignation from the party of the three rebels who would go on to form the Nationalist Congress Party .
FamilyHer son, Rahul Gandhi, was elected to Parliament for the Amethi constituency in 2004. Priyanka Gandhi has not stood for office, though she has worked as a Congress campaign manager. There has been considerable media speculation about their futures in the Congress. Sonia and her children are estranged from Maneka Gandhi, the widow of Rajiv's younger brother Sanjay Gandhi, and her son Varun Gandhi, who are both members of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
PublicationsGandhi has published two books about her late husband, Rajiv and Rajiv's World, and edited two volumes of letters exchanged between Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi from 1922 to 1964, Freedom's Daughter and Two Alone, Two Together.
External linksOfficial websites
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