NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi has never held public office, once likened power to “poison”, and saw his politician father and grandmother assassinated. The son, grandson and great-grandson of prime ministers, Rahul has carried the burden of expectation since his father Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991. But analysts say the Gandhi family’s tight grip on the party leadership — dating back to India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru — made his ascension almost inevitable. He was 14 when his grandmother, prime minister Indira Gandhi, was slain by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 as revenge for the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. He has been at his most impassioned defending the secular tradition personified by his great-grandfather Jawaharal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, whose socialist model framed the post-independence economy.

Source: Pakistan Today December 04, 2017 16:52 UTC