Sonia Gandhi - Biography

Sonia Gandhi - Biography
Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi, born Edvige Antonia Albina Maino[1] on 9 December 1946, is an Indian politician, the President of the Indian National Congress and the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. She is the Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in the Lok Sabha, and the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. She was named the third most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in the year 2004[2] and currently ranks 6th.[3] She was also named among the Time 100 most influential people in the world for the years 2007[4] and 2008.[5] She was returned to Parliament by a margin of over 400,000 votes in the by-election for Rae Bareilly after the office of profit controversy.

Early life

[edit] Italy
Born to Stefano and Paola Maino in Lusiana, a little village 20 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, and former Fascist soldier, died in 1983. [7] Her mother and two sisters still live around Orbassano.[8]


[edit] UK
In 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.


[edit] India
Sonia and Rajiv were married in 1969, after which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. [9] 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. [10]When Indira was ousted from office in 1977 in the aftermath of the Emergency, the Rajiv family moved abroad for a short time. When Rajiv entered politics in 1982 after the tragic death of his younger brother Sanjay in a plane crash in 1980, Sonia continued to focus on her family and avoided all contact with public.[11] She acquired Indian citizenship in 1983 [12] after 14 years of her marriage. [13]


[edit] Political career

[edit] Wife of the Prime Minister
Sonia 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.[citation needed] 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 out. 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. [14]


[edit] Congress President
Following her husband's assassination on 21 May 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.[15] 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[16].

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.


[edit] Leader of the Opposition

Sonia Gandhi with Bill Clinton during his visit in 2000She 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.[17] 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 the record of having served as Congress President for 10 years consecutively.


[edit] 2004 elections and aftermath
In 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 16 May, 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 [18]. The NDA also claimed that there were legal reasons that barred her from the Prime Minister's post, and, indeed, from Parliament.[19] They pointed, in particular, to Section 5 of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955, which they claimed implied 'reciprocity'. This was contested by others[20] 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[21], 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[22].

The Congress registered wins in states like Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Assam under her Presidency. There were losses when it lost in 11 states, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka in the same period.


[edit] UPA Chairperson
On 18 May, she recommended noted economist Dr. Manmohan Singh for the Prime Minister's post.

On 23 March 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.[23][24]

She addressed the United Nations on 2 October 2007, Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary which is observed as the International day of non-violence after a UN resolution passed on 15 July 2007[25].


[edit] Criticism
Gandhi's foreign birth has sparked intense debate and opposition[26][27][18]. 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 [28].

There has also been opposition from within the Congress Party, however. In May 1999, three senior leaders of the party (Sharad Pawar, Purno A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar) 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 [29].

A housewife forced into politics, she used to be criticised for reading out prepared speeches instead of speaking extempore.


[edit] Family
Her son, Rahul Gandhi, was elected to Parliament from the Amethi constituency (UP) 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 future 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).


[edit]