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FAMILY ROOTS Rahul Gandhi is the scion of India's most powerful political family. Gandhi is the son of Italian -born Sonia Gandhi , the powerful President of the Indian National Congress, and Rajiv Gandhi , the former Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1991 by Sri Lankan Tamil militants. He was only 14 when his grand-mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi , was assassinated by Sikh militants in 1984. His great-grandfather was Jawaharlal Nehru , India's first Prime Minister and a distinguished leader of the national freedom struggle. EDUCATION Unlike his father he did not complete his schooling at The Doon School but went to St. Columba's School in New Delhi. He was later home-schooled for security reasons. Rahul entered St. Stephen's College but after a year he left for Harvard . During the parliamentary elections in 2004, Gandhi said that he had received an MPhil in Development Economics from Cambridge University, but where he received his BA has never been disclosed. He worked as in London with the strategy consultancy firm Monitor Group, before he returned to India in 2002 to start a software company. POLITICAL CAREER Although, his mother had been the Congress President and Leader Of The Opposition since 1998, Gandhi had showed little interest in politics. In 2003, there was widespread media speculation about his imminent entry into national politics; this was not discouraged. Appearing with his mother at public events and Congress meetings, Rahul also went to Pakistan on a goodwill visit to watch a historic Cricket Test match between the two nations. In May 2004, he ran for the Lok Sabha , the lower house of Parliament, from his father's constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and won by a wide margin. His campaign was directed by his younger sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and his victory generated considerable media excitement and enthusiasm amongst the younger citizens of the country. He leads a new group of young MPs, all sons of distinguished Congressmen. Since then, Gandhi has sought to cultivate support from young Indians by carefully working up his profile through the media and staying away from the scandals of coalition politics. Although he holds no other office and concentrates mainly on constituency issues and the politics of Uttar Pradesh, it is widely speculated that Congress President Sonia Gandhi is grooming him for the top job, the office of Prime Minister, which she renounced for herself. There is speculation that he and sister Priyanka Gandhi convinced his mother not to take the PM seat, though this has never been confirmed and she cited the uproar and other personal reasons for not taking the Prime Minister seat. EXTERNAL LINKS
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