Rahul Gandhi

At 53 years old, Rahul Gandhi has this physical status:

Rahul Gandhi (born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician who served as the President of the Indian National Congress from 16 December 2017 to 3 July 2019.

He comes from a long line of politicians, the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has occupied a prominent position in India's politics ever since independence was granted in 1947.

Jawaharlal Nehru, his great-grandfather, was India's first prime minister and also India's longest-serving Prime Minister for a total of seventeen years.

Indira Gandhi's grandmother, as well as his brother, Rajiv, was India's first female Prime Minister and was India's youngest prime minister to be sworn in to office.

He is the chairperson of the Indian Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India, and he is the son of Sonia and Rajiv.

Gandhi, a member of the Indian Parliament, represents Wayanad, Kerala's constituency in the 17th Lok Sabha, although he obtained primary education in New Delhi and Dehradun, but was later homeschooled due to security concerns.

He later attended Rollins College under a pseudonym, his identity being known only to a select few individuals, including some university officials and security companies.

Gandhi worked at the Monitor Group, a London management consulting company, after receiving degrees in International Relations and Development Studies at the universities of Rollins and Cambridge.

Rahul Gandhi founded Backops Services Private Ltd, a Mumbai-based technology outsourcing company, in 2004. He ran for office in 2004 and won the general elections from Amethi, a seat that had previously been held by his father; he also won again from the constituency in 2009 and 2014.

Gandhi was elected as the Vice President in 2013 after being previously the General Secretary, amid calls from congressional veterans for his increased involvement in national politics and national government.

Rahul Gandhi led the INC's campaign in the 2014 Indian general election; the party saw its worst electoral result in its history, winning just 44 seats relative to 206 in the 2009 general election. In December 2017, Rahul Gandhi was elected president of the Congress.

He is also a trustee of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust.

Early life and background

Gandhi was born in Delhi on 19 June 1970 as the first of two children of Rajiv Gandhi, who later became India's prime minister and Sonia Gandhi (née Maino), who later became the president of India and grandson of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Feroze Gandhi, his paternal grandfather, was a Parsi from Gujarat. Jawaharlal Nehru's uncle, who was India's first prime minister, is also a great-grandson. Priyanka Vadra is his younger sister, and Robert Vadra is his brother-in-law.

Gandhi attended St. Columba's School in Delhi before enrolling The Doon School in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, from 1981 to 1983. In the meantime, his father rose from politics and became the prime minister on October 31, 1984, the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Priyanka was home-schooled after Indira Gandhi's family was confronted by Sikh militants Gandhi, Gandhi, and his sister.

Gandhi started St. Stephen's College, Delhi (a University of Delhi) in 1989 for his undergraduate studies but then moved to Harvard University after completing the first year examinations. In 1991, after Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) during an election rally, he moved to Rollins College in Florida, USA, presumably due to security worries and obtained his B.A. In 1994, the first attempt was made. During his time at Rollins, he assumed the pseudonym Raul Vinci and that his identity was known only to the university officials and security companies. He went on to obtain an M.Phil. In 1995, Trinity College, Cambridge, was founded.

Gandhi spent three years at the Monitor Group, a management consulting firm in London, before joining politics. Gandhi returned to India in 2002 and founded his IT consultancy firm, viz. Backops Services Private Ltd in Mumbai, where he was one of the company's directors, was one of the firm's founders. BackOps UK was founded in 1992, a company that used to recruit defence contracts from foreign companies that supplied to the Indian Armed forces. In the company's reports, Rahul Gandhi said he was a British citizen, but the congress party said it was a yearly mistake. Gandhi has been a fan of harnessing the size and dexterity of electronics while also increasing citizens'''s power.

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Political career

Gandhi declared his entry into politics in March 2004, a stand for his father's former constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha, India's lower house of Parliament, in March 2004. His mother had been holding the position until she was transferred to Raebareli's neighboring seat. The Congress had been doing poorly in Uttar Pradesh, with only ten of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state at the time. At the time, this move surprised political commentators who had regarded his sister Priyanka Gandhi as the more charismatic and likely to succeed. In his first interview with foreign media, Gandhi portrayed himself as an uniter of India's youthful population and condemned "divisive" politics, meaningless caste and religious tensions. Gandhi took power, retaining the family's stronghold with a victory margin of over 100,000. He had no other position before 2006, and he had no other office until 2006. Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi, supervised their mother's re-election bid to Raebareilly in 2006, which was won by a 400,000-vote margin. He was a central figure in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections; the congress, on the other hand, secured only 22 seats out of the 403 seats with 8.3% of votes.

In a reshuffle of the party's secretariat, Gandhi was appointed General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee on September 24, 2007. He was also given charge of the Indian Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India, as part of the reshuffle. When India Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India Manmohan Singh was still abroad, senior Congressman Veerappa Moily discussed the "Rahul-as-PM" strategy in 2008. In January 2013, he was promoted to the role of vice president of the party.

Gandhi promised to change youth politics in September 2007, when he was named general secretary in charge of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) and the National Students Union of India (NSUI). Gandhi held interviews at his 12 Tughlak Lane residence in New Delhi in November 2008 to select at least 40 people who will make up the Indian Youth Congress' think tank, an institution that has been keen to change since he was appointed general secretary in September 2007.

The IYC and NSUI have seen a dramatic rise in members from 200,000 to 2.5 million under Gandhi. "Three years later, as another organizational shakeup takes place, Gandhi's aspiration remains unrealized," the Indian Express said in 2011.

Gandhi retained his Amethi seat in the 2009 Indian general election by defeating his nearest competitor by a margin of over 370,000 votes. Gandhi was credited with the revival of Congress in Uttar Pradesh, where they gained 21 of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats. In ten weeks, he spoke at 125 rallies around the country. The national elections defied the pre-poll and exit polls' predictions and gave the incumbent Congress-led UPA government a strong mandate.

Gandhi was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police at Bhatta Parsaul village in May 2011 after he protested for more compensation for a highway project. Gandhi was arrested from the demonstration site and later released after a drop off at the Delhi-UP border and fell off.

Gandhi campaigned during the 2012 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh's political critical election for almost two months, staging 200 rallies. Nonetheless, Congress emerged as the fourth party in the state, winning 28 seats, an increase of six seats from the previous 2007 election. Congress secured two seats out of a total of 15 seats in the Amethi parliamentary constituency.

Congress representatives defended the result in Uttar Pradesh, saying "there's a big difference between state elections and national polls, and in the end, there is only the first family, a wish, and a prayer," and pointing out that Gandhi was credited to Gandhi in the 2009 Lok Sabha national elections in the state. In an interview after the result was announced, Gandhi admitted responsibility for the result.

Gandhi was not elected at the head of the Gujarat assembly elections earlier this year. Opponents saw and accepted defeat as an admission of loss, while opponents viewed it as a way to avoid being blamed for loss. In the 182 assembly, Congress gained 57 seats, which was 2 fewer than the previous elections in 2007. Congress lost 4 more seats to the BJP in bypolls later this year.

Gandhi contested the 2014 Indian general election from his constituency, Amethi, and led the Indian National Congress' election campaign. Gandhi retained the Amethi seat by defeating his nearest foe, BJP's Smriti Irani, by a narrow margin of 107,000 votes. The Indian National Congress' worst-ever election under his leadership, losing only 44 seats to 206 seats secured in the 2009 general election compared to 206 seats won previously. The new congress-led electoral alliance, the United States' worst-ever election results, lost only 59 seats, relative to the 2262 seats won in the 2009 general election. Gandhi tried to resign his positions after the loss, but the party's working committee denied it.

The Delhi High Court dismissed Sonia Gandhi's appeals, five others, including Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey, and Satyan Pitroda, in December 2015, ordering them to appear in person before the trial court on December 9th. Gandhi was not charged in the lawsuit in 2016. The Supreme Court of India granted an exemption to Gandhi in 2016. Subramanian Swamy's complaint was dismissed by the Congress party, who characterized it as "politically motivated."

Gandhi used the term "Chowkidar Chor Hai" to describe Narendra Modi, the BJP's Prime Minister of the Indian general election, in a jibe against him. Modi was mocked for the apparent fraud and favouritism in granting the contracts for the Rafale fighter jet contract. The Supreme Court of India heard the allegation, but after carefully reviewing all of the facts, the Supreme Court dismissed the complaint and exonerated the incumbent government of India.

Gandhi led the Indian National Congress party's election campaign. The party increased its seat count from 44 out of 543 in 2014 to 52 out of 542 in 2019, under his leadership. In 2019, it also increased its vote from 19.3% to 19.5%. The Indian National Congress gained 52 seats, but only half of the seats were needed to claim the position of Leader of Opposition. Gandhi resigned as party leader after this poor showing in the election, and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, took over as party leader. Gandhi defeated two constituencies, Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, and Wayanad, Kerala, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Gandhi gained a 64% vote share in the 2019 general elections in Wayanad. However, he lost his current seat in Amethi to the former soap opera actress Smriti Irani of the BJP by a slim margin of 52,000 votes.

Bahr Jodo Yatra, more accurately a "unite India march," was initiated by Rahul Gandhi on September 7, 2022. The March will cover 3,500 kilometers in less than five months in 12 states and two Union Territories, including Kashmir.

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