Sonia Gandhi
Sonia Gandhi | |
|---|---|
| Constituency | Rae Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 9, 1946 Lusiana, Italy |
| Political party | Indian National Congress |
| Spouse | Rajiv Gandhi (Deceased) |
| Children | Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi |
| Residence | New Delhi |
As of July 4, 2006 Source: Sonia Gandhi's Official website | |
Sonia Gandhi (Template:Lang-hi, IPA: [soːnɪjaː gaːndʰiː]),leader of the Congress Party of India, born Sonia Antonia Maino on December 9, 1946, is an Italian-born 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 [1] and currently ranks 13th. She was returned to Parliament by a margin of over 400,000 votes in the recently held by-election for Rae Bareilly after the office of profit controversy.[citation needed]
Early life
Born to Stefano and Paola Maino, as Sonia Antonia 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 and allegedly former Fascist supporter, died in 1983. [2] Her mother and two sisters still live around Orbassano. [citation needed]
In 1964, she went to study English at The Bell Educational Trust's language school in the city of Cambridge.[citation needed] While doing this certificate course she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was enrolled at the time in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. [citation needed]They were married in 1969, after which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. [citation needed]
It was not until 1983 that she acquired Indian citizenship. [3] The couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi (born 1970) and Priyanka Gandhi (born 1972). [citation needed]
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. [citation needed]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 publicity.[citation needed]
The head of the christian mafia in India is the Italian barmaid and ISI agent who was hoisted on Rajiv Gandhi by the US spy agency CIA. Sonia was working as a college prostitute in Uk when she met Rajiv.
Political career
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] She was also involved in looking after her husband's constituency of Amethi. [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, 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. [4]
Congress President
Following her husband's assassination on May 21, 1991, there were calls for her to enter politics by members of the Congress Party[1]. Sonia 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. [2] After her refusal, the party settled on the choice of P V Narasimha Rao as leader and, subsequently, Prime Minister. The Congress fortunes continued to dwindle and it was feared that it would no longer be the largest party in parliament. Several senior leaders such as Madhavrao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot, Mamata Banerjee, G K Moopanar, P.Chidambaram, Jayanthi Natarajan etc were in open revolt against the incumbent President Sitaram Kesri and quit the party, splitting the Congress into many factions.
Sonia finally joined the Congress Party as a primary member in the Calcutta Plenary Session at 1997[3].
She officially took charge of the Congress party as its president in 1998 becoming the fifth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the eighth foreign-born person to become Congress President, and the third foreign-born woman, following Annie Besant and Nellie Sengupta. She was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1999 from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh as well as Bellary in Karnataka.
Leader of the Opposition
She was elected the Leader of the Opposition of the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999. During her campaign, her opponents (mainly the Bharatiya Janata Party) played up her foreign birth, her failure to take Indian citizenship for 15 years after her wedding, and her lack of fluency in Hindi or any Indian language despite her claim that she had "become an Indian in her heart the day she became Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law". [citation needed]In May 1999, Sonia Gandhi offered to resign from the Congress Party leadership after three senior leaders (Sharad Pawar, Purno A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar) challenged her right to try to become India's Prime Minister, given that she was not born of Indian blood or soil.[citation needed]
Despite her party not having a majority, she told the President that she had the numbers to form the government but embarrassingly the final numbers fell short of 272. [4]
When the BJP led NDA formed a government under Vajpayee, she took on the office of the Leader of Opposition. As Leader of Opposition she a no-confidence motion against the NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2003. The motion was moved after the Defence Ministry refused to disclose the findings of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) probe into the allegations of corruption in purchase of caskets during the Kargil War.While the motion was resoundingly defeated in the NDA dominated house, she used the opportunity to kick of the Congress' election campaign. In her own speech which had opened the debate she accused the government of ineptness in handling the Kargil crisis and the violence in the North East. She also charged the government ministers with profiteering from the war. In their replies the government did not answer any questions raised by Mrs Gandhi but focussed their attack on her "foreign origins".[5]
2004 elections and aftermath
In the 2004 general elections, Sonia launched a nationwide campaign, criss-crossing the country on the Aam Aadmi (Ordinary people) 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).
Amidst a storm of controversy raised by the NDA over her 'foreign origin' in which leaders like Sushma Swaraj threatened to shave their hair, as a protest, among others, Gandhi declined the leadership of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha. That position would have indicated that she was the party's nominee for Prime Minister. Her action was hailed as an act of renunciation, while her opponents attacked it as a political move in which the ultimate aim was to gain an absolute majority for the Congress Party in Parliament, subsequent to which she would become Prime Minister.
At the time, several members of the National Democratic Alliance - notably Subramaniam Swamy and Sushma Swaraj - claimed that there were legal reasons that barred her from the Prime Minister's post, and, indeed, from Parliament. [6]. They pointed, in particular, to Section 5 of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955, which they claimed implied 'reciprocity'. This was contested by others [7] and eventually the suits were dismissed by the Supreme Court of India.[8] The Supreme Court of India dismissed an attempt to prosecute her for falsely claiming to have graduated from Cambridge University during the election [9].
Finally, in a speech given to Congress M.Ps in the Central Hall of Parliament, she stated that she had never aimed to be Prime Minister and her entry into politics was only to preserve secularism and protect the poor[10]. She said that after listening to the promptings of her "inner voice" she had no desire to occupy the Prime Minister's position. [11]
UPA Chairperson
On May 18, she recommended noted economist Dr. Manmohan Singh for the Prime Minister's post. Dr. Singh had served as India's finance minister in a previous Congress party government headed by Rao, and is considered by many as the chief architect of India's economic reforms of the early 1990s. Moreover, the fact that he was not known to have any political ambitions and that he enjoyed a good rapport with Sonia Gandhi probably helped him to win the post. [citation needed]Sonia retained the post of the Leader of the Majority and the Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party. This arrangement enabled her to keep political control of the party and to deal with the political fire fights in the giant coalition government while leaving the management of the country in the hands of Manmohan Singh.
On March 23, 2006, Gandhi announced her resignation from the Lok Sabha and also as chairperson of the National Advisory Council. According to Indian electoral law, an elected person cannot hold an office of profit (meaning paid posts). She was re-elected from her constituency Rae Bareilly in May 2006.
As chairperson of the National Advisory Committee, she played an important role in making the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Right to Information Act into law.[citation needed]
Family
Her 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 BJP.
Literary contributions
Sonia Gandhi has published two books: Rajiv and Rajiv's World. In addition, she has also edited Freedom's Daughter and Two Alone, Two Together (two volumes of letters exchanged between Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi from 1922 to 1964).[citation needed]
Notes
- ^ Sonia Gandhi 3rd most powerful woman. Retrieved on March 23 2007.
- ^ In Maino land. Retrieved on March 23 2007.
- ^ Sonia quits as MP Retrieved on March 23 2007.
- ^ Who is Quattrocchi?Retrieved on March 23 2007.
References
- S. R. ET AL. BAKSHI (1998) Sonia Gandhi, The President of AICC South Asia Books. ISBN 81-7024-988-0
- Rupa Chaterjee (1999) Sonia Gandhi: The Lady in Shadow Butala. ISBN 81-87277-02-5
- C. Rupa, Rupa Chaterjee (2000) Sonia Mystique South Asia Books. ISBN 81-85870-24-1