Sonia Gandhi is an Italian-born Indian politician, who has served as President of the Indian National Congress party since 1998. She is the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. After her husband's assassination in 1991, she was invited by Congress leaders to take over the government, but she refused. Only in 1997 she agreed to join politics, and in 1998, she was elected President of the Congress.
Background
Ethnicity:
Antonia is Sonia’s real name in her birth certificate. Sonia is the name given to her subsequently by her father, Stefano Maino following his return from Russia where he had been a prisoner of war. Stefano had joined the Nazi army as a volunteer.
She was born to Stefano and Paola Maino in Contrada Màini, at Lusiana, a little village 30 km from Vicenza in Veneto, Italy. She spent her adolescence in Orbassano, a town near Turin, being raised in a traditional Roman Catholic family and attending a Catholic school. Her father, Stefano Maino, was a building mason, who owned a small construction business in Orbassano. Stefano fought against the Soviet military alongside Hitler's Wehrmacht on the eastern front in World War II. He died in 1983. Her mother and two sisters still live around Orbassano.
In 1964, she went to study English at the Bell Educational Trust's language school in the city of Cambridge. She met Rajiv Gandhi who was enrolled in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge in 1965 at a Greek restaurant while working there. Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi married in 1968, in a Hindu ceremony following which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
Career
Gandhi did not enter politics until after her husband's assassination on May 21, 1991. Following his death she was pressured by the Congress Party to enter politics and to continue the party's dynastic tradition of being led by a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
In 1998 she formally entered politics, assuming the helm of the Congress Party and declaring herself a candidate for Prime Minister. Largely through her family name, she was able to draw large crowds and nearly single-handedly revitalized the party. However, she remained a somewhat enigmatic figure, and her opposition (chiefly the Bharatiya Janata Party) constantly played off the fact that she was foreign-born and was not a fluent Hindi speaker until she entered politics, frequently asserting that she had no qualifications other than her name.
She rose to become Leader of the Opposition in the 13th Lok Sabha, and in the 2004 election launched an aggressive campaign to unseat the ruling Hindu-Nationalists. She had been tipped to be the next Prime Minister of India following her party's surprise victory in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. On May 16 she was unanimously voted to lead a 19-party coalition government.
Religion
Sonia follows Hindu and Indian traditions with her children.
Interests
Indian hand-looms and handicrafts, as well as Indian contemporary, classical and tribal art
Writers
Munshi Premchand
Sport & Clubs
Cricket
Athletes
Sachin Tendulkar
Music & Bands
Folk and classical music
Connections
Sonia is the widow of late Rajiv Gandhi, elder son of Indira Gandhi. Sonia has two children, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi.
Father:
Stefano Maino
Her father, Stefano Maino, was a building mason, who owned a small construction business in Orbassano. Stefano fought against the Soviet military alongside Hitler's Wehrmacht on the eastern front in World War II, he called himself a loyal supporter of Benito Mussolini and Italy's National Fascist Party. He died in 1983.
