Rahul Gandhi was dismissed as a political infant not long ago. But as the 2009 Forbes India 'Person of the Year' works diligently to wake the Congress Party from its rusty stupor, that assessment needs to change
The broken destiny of his family shrouds Rahul Gandhi like the security blanket of his unsmiling protectors. Beyond the penumbral security are adulating millions, who treat him like the deliverer. Not many people have a life like Gandhi — tragic and euphoric at the same time. Maybe that is why he took his time to make up his mind. Maybe it was an urge to be just a regular guy. But after years of hesitation, the scion of India’s first political family is gradually breaking out of the iron cocoon to touch hands with his countrymen. He appears to have decided that he wants to be the hope of his fractious country, the deliverer of modernity to India’s politics.
A person who knows how Gandhi works says that he operates through an informal executive council that includes his friend and aide Kanishka Singh, IYC president Ashok Tanwar, Mandsaur MP Meenakshi Natarajan, Alwar MP Jitendra Singh and NSUI president Hibi Eaden. “It is a consultative process, but there is no doubt on who takes the decisions,’’ he says.
(This story appears in the 08 January, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)