Rahul Gandhi: Behind the rise of India's 'reluctant prince'
- Khushboo Razdan
- Dec 23, 2021
- 2 min read
Published on 17-Dec-2018
Khushboo Razdan
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered his biggest electoral setback in four years on Tuesday after Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its three stronghold states in the country's heartland to main opposition party Indian National Congress.
The man who scripted this surprise win is the heir of the Nehru-Gandhi family and president of the 133-year-old Congress party, Rahul Gandhi.
He is the son, grandson and great-grandson of three former prime ministers: Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru respectively. But despite his family's rich political legacy, success eluded the Gandhi scion for many years.
For the 48-year-old, who took over as president of the party in December last year, at a time when the Congress party ruled merely five out of the total 29 states, “the victory marks his public 'acceptance' as a politician and his emergence as the biggest challenger to Modi for the top job in 2019,” Neerja Chowdhury, a senior political analyst, told CGTN Digital.
Rahul Gandhi meeting supporters during a public rally in Patan, Gujarat, India, November 13, 2017. /VCG Photo
However, Gandhi wasn't even considered a serious contender until last year. In 2017, a group of students reportedly proposed Gandhi's name for the Guinness Book of World Records for Congress' 27 consecutive electoral defeats since 2013. In the last four years, the Congress party had failed to win any state election in a direct contest with the ruling BJP. Out of 18 provincial elections, the Congress party managed to win only two.
“This comes as both a personal and political victory for Rahul Gandhi. It would have been the end of his political life if the Congress had lost Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh,” Shahid Siddiqui, former member of Rajya Sabha (upper house), told CGTN Digital, adding that “facing defeat after defeat Rahul never ran away from taking responsibility for the humiliating losses.”.
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