Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Rajiv Gandhi (Hindi pronunciation: [ˈraːɦʊl ˈɡaːndʱiː] ; born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian Parliament, who represents the constituency of Wayanad, Kerala in the Lok Sabha. He previously represented the constituency of Amethi, Uttar Pradesh. He is a member of the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress and was the party president from December 2017 to July 2019. He is the chairperson of the Indian Youth Congress, the National Students Union of India and a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust. On 23 March 2023, he was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment by a court in Gujarat for a 2019 speech made against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on defamation allegations related to his surname; the conviction resulted in his disqualification from the Parliament. However, in August 2023, the Supreme Court of India stayed his conviction, which allowed him to contest the next election and to be reinstated as an MP for Wayanad. On 7 August 2023, he was reinstated as Member of Parliament.Born in New Delhi, Gandhi spent his early childhood between Delhi and Dehradun and stayed away from the public sphere for much of his childhood and early youth. He received primary education in New Delhi and then the elite all-boys boarding school The Doon School, Dehradun, but was later homeschooled because of security concerns. He began his undergraduate degree at St. Stephen's College before moving to Harvard University. Later he transferred to Rollins College in Florida, from which he graduated in 1994 due to security threats following the assassination of his father, the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The next year, he obtained his M.Phil. from Cambridge. Post-graduation, he began his professional career with the Monitor Group, a management consulting firm in London. He soon returned to India and established the Mumbai-based technology outsourcing firm, Backops Services Private Ltd. In 2004, Gandhi announced his entrance to politics and successfully contested the general elections held that year from Amethi, a seat that was earlier held by his father; he won again from the constituency in 2009 and 2014. Amidst calls from Congress party veterans for his greater involvement in party politics and national government, he was elected Congress vice-president in 2013, having served as the general secretary previously. He led the Congress' campaign in the 2014 Indian general elections; the party suffered its worst electoral result in its history, winning only 44 seats compared to 206 seats won previously in the 2009 general election. In 2017, he succeeded his mother as Congress party leader and led the party into the 2019 Indian general election. The party won 52 seats, failing to get 10% of the seats needed to claim the post of leader of the opposition. After this poor performance in the election, he resigned as party leader and was succeeded by his mother, Sonia Gandhi, on an interim basis.