Politics & Leadership Indian Politics

Rahul Gandhi

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha since 2024

19 June 1970 India Verified by our editors

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Age: 56 yrs; Birthday in 235 days
Works listed: 0; Career highlights
Honours: 0; Awards & distinctions
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Quick facts

Born: 19 June 1970 (age 56)
New Delhi, India
Country: India
Occupation: Politician
Years active: 2004–present
Known for: Bharat Jodo Yatra; former president of the Indian National Congress
Office: Leader of the Opposition, Lok Sabha (since June 2024)
Party: Indian National Congress (president, 2017–2019)
Constituency: Rae Bareli (since 2024); previously Amethi (2004–2019) and Wayanad (2019–2024)
Education: Rollins College (BA); Trinity College, Cambridge (MPhil)
Marital status: Unmarried
Interests: Aikido, scuba diving, fitness
Yatras: Bharat Jodo Yatra (2022–23); Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra (2024)
Star sign: Gemini

Rahul Gandhi · Photo: Photo: Himanshu Arya Khowal / CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Also in Politics & Leadership

Rahul Gandhi is a Congress leader and the Leader of the Opposition in the 18th Lok Sabha. A member of the Nehru–Gandhi family, he was party president from 2017 to 2019 and led the cross-country Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022–23.

Biography

Early life

Rahul Gandhi is the son of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi and the grandson of Indira Gandhi. Security concerns after his grandmother’s assassination shaped his schooling. He completed a BA at Rollins College in Florida and an MPhil in development studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, and worked for a management consultancy in London before returning to India.

Congress leader

He entered the Lok Sabha from Amethi in 2004, became a Congress general secretary in 2007 and vice-president in 2013. He was elected party president in December 2017 and resigned after the Congress’s defeat in the 2019 general election, in which he lost Amethi but won Wayanad in Kerala.

Bharat Jodo Yatra and Leader of the Opposition

From September 2022 to January 2023 he walked about 4,000 km from Kanyakumari to Srinagar in the Bharat Jodo Yatra, followed in 2024 by the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur to Mumbai. In 2023 he was briefly disqualified from Parliament after a criminal defamation conviction, until the Supreme Court stayed the conviction.

After the 2024 election, in which the Congress nearly doubled its seats, he won from Rae Bareli and became Leader of the Opposition — the first since 2014, when no party had enough seats to claim the post.

Politics and positions

Rahul Gandhi has campaigned on unemployment, inequality and a nationwide caste census, and has been a sharp critic of the Modi government and of large business groups he says benefit from it. Supporters credit the Bharat Jodo Yatra with reviving the Congress and his personal image; critics attack him as an unserious dynast. He often speaks about institutions and the Constitution.

Personal life

Gandhi is unmarried. He is a keen practitioner of aikido and fitness, and has spoken about the impact on him of the assassinations of his grandmother and father. He attended school partly at home for security reasons in the 1980s.

Timeline

1970

Born in New Delhi, India
2004

Elected MP for Amethi
2007

Congress general secretary

In charge of the youth and student wings.
2013

Congress vice-president
2017

Congress president

Until July 2019.
2019

Elected from Wayanad

Loses Amethi.
2022

Bharat Jodo Yatra

Walks from Kanyakumari to Srinagar.
2023

Disqualified after a defamation conviction; restored after the Supreme Court stays it
2024

Leader of the Opposition

Elected from Rae Bareli.
2024

Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur to Mumbai

Did you know?

1
Rae Bareli was earlier represented by his grandfather Feroze Gandhi, grandmother Indira Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi.
2
He holds a black belt in aikido.
3
He walked about 4,000 km across India in the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
4
He is the fifth generation of the Nehru–Gandhi family in politics.