India's Gandhi wins 'rebirth' after shock election comeback

Scion of political dynasty leads embattled Congress party to best showing in years

Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of India's main opposition Congress party, escorts his mother, Sonia Gandhi, at a press briefing in New Delhi on June 4. © Reuters

NEETA LAL, Contributing writer

June 12, 2024 13:43 JST

NEW DELHI -- Rahul Gandhi's political career was on life support five years ago. The leader of India's opposition Congress party -- and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty -- had just suffered a thumping defeat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019 polls.

Losing his family's long-held constituency seat in the election drubbing, Gandhi quit as the head of Congress, while Modi and the BJP mocked the great-grandson of India's first post-independence leader as an unserious dilettante who they dubbed "the prince".