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Who is Rahul Gandhi?
Rahul Gandhi is a prominent leader of the Indian National Congress (INC) representing the constituency of Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh since 2024 in the Lok Sabha.
He previously represented the constituency of Wayanad, Kerala, from 2019 to 2024, and Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, from 2004 to 2019.
Born on June 19, 1970 to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi is the grandson of Indira Gandhi, also a former Prime Minister, and the great-grandson of the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Education
Following the murder of Indira Gandhi, Rahul received home education. Later on, he attended St Stephen's College at the University of Delhi before moving to Harvard. He went to Rollins College in Florida following his father's assassination. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, with a master's degree. He started his professional career as a management consultant with Monitor Group in London and later started his own technology outsourcing firm, Backops Services Private Limited.
Political journey
A five-time MP, Rahul Gandhi entered electoral politics during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from UP's Amethi seat, which was then a stronghold of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The Lok Sabha seat was previously represented by Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and Sanjay Gandhi. However, he did not become a part of the government despite Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coming to that year, and continued to work for the party.
He was appointed Congress's general secretary in 2007. He was elected to parliament from Amethi in 2009. With the Congress winning over 200 seats in the Lok Sabha election, calls for Rahul Gandhi to take over as Prime Minister grew within the party. However, he wasn't part of any ministry in the Manmohan Singh government.
Rahul Gandhi was appointed Congress vice president in 2013. The UPA government suffered defeat at the hands of the Narendra Modi-led BJP's campaign in the 2014 elections. The Congress was reduced to its lowest-ever tally of 44 seats. Though Rahul Gandhi managed to win the election from Amethi, he faced a tough competition from BJP's Smriti Irani.
In 2017, Rahul Gandhi was appointed Congress president, replacing his mother Sonia Gandhi. In less than a year of his appointment, the party swept three assembly elections - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. The victory gave hope of the Congress's possible revival in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
However, in 2019 polls, PM Modi-led BJP won over 300 seats in the Lok Sabha and the Congress won just 52 seats. Rahul Gandhi lost his family stronghold seat of Amethi, but was elected from Wayanad, Kerala with a huge margin of over 431,000 votes. He resigned from the post of Congress president in view of the party's dismal performance in the general elections.
In 2024, Gandhi won the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala with a margin of over 350,000 votes against CPI's Annie Raja and also won in Rae Bareli, with a margin of 390,030 votes against BJP's Dinesh Pratap Singh. He decided to vacate the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat and retain his seat from Rae Bareli.
Bharat jodo yatra
Leaving the running of the party in the hands of the veteran Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi concentrated on reaching out to the masses. He conducted an over 4,000 km walkathon from Kanyakumari to Kashmir called ‘Bharat jodo yatra’, spanning from 2022 to 2023. He set the agenda for the party, taking a fierce anti-RSS, anti-monopoly, and pro-social justice stand.
With his ‘Bharat jodo nyay yatra’, which began on January 14, 2024 from Manipur, Rahul Gandhi's influence extended to grassroots activism, youth empowerment, and advocacy for democratic values.