Rahul Gandhi: Destiny's child or an 'empty suit'?

• May 22 2019
• http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business-observer/rahul-gandhi-destiny-s-child-or-an-empty-suit-_165315

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Rahul Gandhi, vying to become the latest prime minister from India's most famous dynasty, has worked hard to shed his image as an entitled footloose princeling and political lightweight.

But the great-grandson, grandson, and son of three past premiers of the world's biggest democracy still faces a tough task beating Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the elections.

No relation to independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, Rahul was born in 1970 when his grandmother Indira Gandhi —daughter of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru — was premier.

In 1984 Indira was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards and she was succeeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul's father. Rajiv was himself assassinated in 1991 by a Tamil suicide bomber when Rahul was 20.

Rahul was enrolled at Harvard but dropped out after a year, following his father's death. He later graduated from Rollins College, Florida, and in 1994 earned a master's degree from Cambridge.

While in his 20s he lived in London, where he worked at a management consultancy for a time.

His Italian-born mother Sonia Gandhi, widow of Rajiv, took charge of the Congress party in 1998 before handing over the reins to Rahul, her first-born, in 2017.