Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi was born in Delhi to Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi. He studied at St. Columba’s School and the Doon School before receiving part of his schooling at home because of security concerns. His higher education included study in India and the United States, followed by a bachelor’s degree from Rollins College in 1994 and an M.Phil. in Development Studies from Cambridge in 1995.

Gandhi entered the Lok Sabha in 2004 and represented Amethi in Uttar Pradesh until 2019. He then represented Wayanad in Kerala before being elected to the eighteenth Lok Sabha in June 2024. His current constituency is Rae Bareli. Parliamentary assignments have included committees dealing with home affairs, human resource development, external affairs and defence, giving his legislative career a range of subjects beyond a single policy portfolio.

Within Congress, Gandhi became an All India Congress Committee general secretary in September 2007 and vice-president in January 2013. He assumed the party presidency in December 2017 and served until 2019. He subsequently led the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which travelled from Kanyakumari to Kashmir in 2022–2023. In 2024, the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra travelled from Manipur to Mumbai as part of the party’s campaigning and public outreach.

The Lok Sabha’s official record lists Gandhi as its present Leader of the Opposition, with effect from 9 June 2024. His parliamentary biography also records a period of disqualification beginning on 23 March 2023 and the cessation of that disqualification on 7 August 2023. In the eighteenth Lok Sabha, he is a member of the Committee on Defence, with the appointment recorded from September 2024.