Rahul Gandhi will take over the reins of the Congress party on Saturday. This marks the beginning of the new era in the Grand Old Party, which has so far seen the leadership of Sonia Gandhi for 19 years.
Ahead of the official elevation, here are the major updates on this political story:
1: Rahul Gandhi will receive a formal certificate of being elected as the Congress president unopposed from the party’s central election authority at a function at the party headquarters in New Delhi today.
2: The 47-year-old will take the charge from his mother Sonia Gandhi, who has been the longest serving president of the Congress.
3: Sonia Gandhi, who became Congress president in 1998, steered the 132-year-old party for 19 years.
4: Sonia Gandhi’s two-decade long stint saw the Congress-led UPA winning two successive Lok Sabha polls in 2004 and 2009 and formed UPA-I and UPA-II governments.
5: On Friday, the media was abuzz with stories about Sonia Gandhi’s retirement.
6: Congress, however, clarified that she is retiring from the post of party president and not from politics.
7: The reluctance shown by Rahul Gandhi in his initial years of politics is now a thing of past.
8: The Gujarat Assembly Election saw him in an alll-new aggressive avatar. Be it going to temples or questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter, Rahul Gandhi managed to infuse new energy in the party’s poll camapign.
9: Though all major exit polls are showing the BJP victory in both Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the fact remains that this would be solely seen in comparison with Rahul Gandhi’s aggressive campaigning.
10: At a time when the Congress has been reduced to limited political presence across India, Rahul Gandhi will have huge responsibility on his shoulders.
