Lost leaders: Sonia Gandhi

Heir to India's longest political dynasty who could have been prime minister.

By Meenal Vamburkar Published 05 March 2010

Sonia Gandhi is president of the Indian National Congress party. In 2004, Congress won the majority in India's general election, defeating the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Gandhi fought the Congress campaign on behalf of the "aam aadmi", or common man, battling the BJP's rival "India Shining" campaign by asking: "Who is India shining for?"

Following the Congress win, she was expected to become prime minister. To the country's surprise, she declined, saying it had never been intentions to assume the role.

Though she refused to go into details, many speculated that Gandhi was afraid of the attacks on her foreign birth: she was born in Italy, but gave up her foreign citizenship long before the campaign.

Angry Congress MPs pushed her to ignore the attacks and accept that the citizens of India had given her a mandate to govern, but Gandhi's decision was firm.

Shortly afterwards, she appointed Manmohan Singh, a noted economist, to the position of prime minister. He still serves in that role today.

While many politicians find themselves coming close to leadership, but never being given the chance to lead, Gandhi made it to the top and decided she didn't like the view.

Previous: Thomas E Dewey

Next: Leon Trotsky

Back to list

2 comments

Wed, 2010-11-03 08:55 — Vivekanandan (not verified)

Dear Madam

Latest trend in Youth Congress in Kerala is to get a seat in all contesting forums, whether it is in Legislative assembly, Loksabha or Rajyasabha. Even on entry as an ordinary member, the youths thinks and aims so. For this, they directly approaches to Rahul Gandhi. not any one lesser than that. The main quarry is about their contribution in winning any of the contesting candidates. Now a days it is a tendancy in Kerala that the youths are attcking the Congress or UDF candidates by spreading annonymous notices and such things and make the candidates fail. These are all very ugly things to virtually prove that, youths only will win in elections. This can not be encouraged by any leader, whether it is Rahul Gandhi himself. Please try to watch the performance of the Youths like Liju, etc so many are not even worked for a single day for this Party. The are already been as threats to KPCC and all matuared Leaders. How they became in hights without working in party? Now its a general tendancy that, on entering in to the party, one will ask for some seats. Recently while the news spread about the reconstitution of the DCCs, I jokingly commented among my colleagues that seats are to be reserved for youths and KSU. Surprisingly, the same thing happened in the next day. Youths and KSU demanded for seats in DCCs. Whats this? Is this congress? Every human including Rahul Gandhi will become aged. The situation of surviving only Youths is not fare. Let them work for the party for at least 5 years.

Fri, 2010-10-01 03:52 — Mohinder Singh (not verified)

RES MA
DAM. Stop aqusition of fertile agriculture land of v&po VAIDWALA and Khairpur in sirsa (HARYANA ). THE govt of haryana is going to destablise more than 450 families in the name of URBANISATION . THis land is being aquried for sec 21 huda.on the one hand the SUPREME COURT is giving direction that the fertile land be spared from aquision & on the other hand this land is being aquirid for the benefit of the PRIVATE COLONISERS i.e ERA GROUP & GLOBAL CITY.MOST of the families are migrated from PAKISTAN AT THE TIME OF PARTITION.AT SIRSA the land which is aquired for sec=20 etc long 20-years ago is lying vacant causing a great loss of agriculture production .there must be a law that until & unless the last aquired land is not utilised upto a minimum of 80 percent no other land is to be aquired. THe land which is producing about 20 quintal of wheat & 10 quantal of cotton is being declared BARREN BY THE GOVT OF HARYANA ON FILMSY GROUNDS.THESE types of aquisions if not stopped immidiatly must bring STARVATION IN INDIA VERY SOON THE WORLDWISE PROBLEM OF STARVATION. WE fell sorry to point out that none of the M.P or MLA is fighting in true sense against the wrongful & unwanted aquisition to give benefit to the colonisers. IN this particular case the HUDA given access road to the colonisers & going to consruct outer road to safegaurd their intersts.EVEN THE MAIN ROAD COMING FRM THE NH_-1 IS BEING SHIFTED TO SAFEGAURD THE LAND OF THESE BUILDERS AT THE COST OF POOR FARMERS WHO HAVE NO OTHER MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD .EVEN THE LAND WHICH IS OUTSIDE THE FINAL MASTERPLA FOR THE CONTROLLED AREA-2025 A.D DR6 no DTP (S R )690\07 dt 09.10.2007 ISSUED by DEPTT OF T&C PLG HARYANA THIS FERTILE LAND IS GOING TO BE AQUIRED BY NTIFICATION LAC (H)\ntla\2008\393 dt 15.01.2008 under sec -4 of land aquisition act..the killa no 2.9.12.19.22 of murabba no 36.54.63.82.89 are in open space outside the master plan-2025.IF such unwanted aquistions are not stopped the will create LAW & ORDER PROBLEM IN THE COUNTRY & MUST BRING STARVATION IN THE COUNTRY .MR. BHUPINDER SINGH HOODA DECLARES TO BRING HARYALI IN HARYANA BUT WORKING TO DESTROY HARYALI FOR THE BENEFIT OF COLONISERS PLEASE ISSUE GUIDELINES TO STOP SUCH AQUISTIONES WHICH ARE GOINg to UZARA OF 450 families. in the name of sec 21 & 22.ON THE ONE HAND HUDA IS DECLARING TO WORK AT NO PROFIT NO LOSS BASIS BUT IN REALITY PAYING ONLY LESS THAN 1\15 OF ACTUAL PRICE.AS PER PUNJAB KESARI DT 17.03.2009. THE HUDA IS PAYING MORE THAN 200 CRORES OF INCOME TAX ON INCOME OF MORE THAN 500 CRORES.PLEASE SAVE OUR LAND & SOULS THANKS