Sonia Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi is an Indian politician and former president of the political party Indian National Congress. She was born in Vicenza, Italy and was raised as Roman Catholic. After completing her basic schooling, she went on attending Cambridge University, England for higher education. Cambridge is where she met her future husband, Rajiv Gandhi in the year 1965. After three years of courtship, they decided to get married. Initially, Sonia's parents were reluctant due to culture difference but later gave in. The couple got married in a simple ceremony in New Delhi, India on February 25, 1968. She took up Indian citizenship and moved in with her mother-in-law, Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. At the start, Sonia chose to remain away from the public sphere but helped her mother-in-law, with hosting state function and receiving dignitaries.

In the year 1981, when Indira Gandhi's other son Sanjay Gandhi Sanjay Gandhi, an Indian television and theater ac >> Read More... was killed in the flying accident, Rajiv Gandhi decided to join politics. Although she was not pleased by this decision, she supported her husband dutifully. But alas Rajiv Gandhi's political career did not last long, and he was assassinated by a women member of Tamil Tigers(band of militants) during a rally in Tamil Nadu. Sonia was devastated by this and spend the next six years in a recluse, rarely leaving her home. During this time she published two books, namely 'Rajiv' and 'Rajiv's World' offering glimpse of her husband's life. In 1997 after much pleading from the Congress party, she joined politics and was named the party's president.

Under her leadership, the Congress party won the 2004 elections, and a new UPA party was formed, which was re-elected in 2009. Her foreign birth was always a subject of debate and often made of by the opposition party, but that never mattered her. Sonia has been known for the implementation of the Food security bill, right to information, and MNREGA over course of her political career. She was considered one of the most powerful politicians and listed powerful women in the world. In the year 2017, she resigned from her position of Congress President due to health issues but continues to lead the party's Parliamentary committee.