Priyanka Gandhi Vadra

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Priyanka Gandhi with brother Rahul Gandhi.

Two pie charts showing 2024 Indian Lok Sabha election results. Left: BJP 240, Congress 99, Others 204. Right: NDA 293, UPA/INDIA 234, Others 16.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra

Q: Who is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra?

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is an Indian politician, a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and a leader of the Indian National Congress. Her great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, grandmother Indira Gandhi, and father Rajiv Gandhi served as prime minister of India.

Q: What is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra known for?

She is noted for her striking resemblance to her grandmother Indira Gandhi and her charismatic personality.

Q: How did Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contribute to the 2024 elections?

She was the Congress’s star campaigner, joined the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, and helped improve the party’s performance, winning 99 seats in the lower house of the Indian parliament.

Indian politician

Written by Gitanjali Roy

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 7, 2025 • Article History

Quick Facts

Born:: January 12, 1972, New Delhi, India (age 53)

Political Affiliation:: Indian National Congress

Notable Family Members:: father Rajiv Gandhi; mother Sonia Gandhi; brother Rahul Gandhi

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Who is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra?

What is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra known for?

How did Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contribute to the 2024 elections?

News •

Priyanka Gandhi’s absence during Waqf bill debate ‘a blot’: Newspaper run by Kerala Muslim body pens editorial critical of Wayanad MP • Apr. 4, 2025, 7:19 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Kerala YouTuber arrested for blocking convoy of Priyanka Gandhi • Mar. 30, 2025, 10:20 PM ET (The Hindu)

Thangal hosts Iftar for Priyanka • Mar. 30, 2025, 2:08 AM ET (The Hindu)

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (born January 12, 1972, New Delhi, India) is an Indian politician and member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. She is a prominent leader of the Indian National Congress, along with her mother, Sonia Gandhi, and her brother, Rahul Gandhi. She is known for her charismatic personality and is particularly involved in politics in the key state of Uttar Pradesh.

Family

Priyanka Gandhi was born into India’s most powerful political dynasty, the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has led the Congress Party since India achieved independence from British rule in 1947. Her great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of independent India (1947–64), and her grandmother Indira Gandhi was the country’s first woman prime minister (1966–77, 1980–84). Her father, Rajiv Gandhi, served as prime minister for a term (1984–89) and was later assassinated at an election rally. Since then, the Congress Party has been led by Sonia Gandhi and, more recently, by Rahul Gandhi.

The Nehru-Gandhi Family

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964): first prime minister of India, married to Kamala Nehru (née Kaul)
Indira Gandhi (1917–84): Nehru’s daughter, India’s first woman prime minister, married to Feroze Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi (1944–91): Indira Gandhi’s elder son, Indian prime minister, married to Sonia Gandhi
Sanjay Gandhi (1946–80): Indira Gandhi’s younger son, married to Maneka Gandhi
Sonia Gandhi (born 1946): née Maino, Rajiv Gandhi’s wife, Congress leader
Maneka Gandhi (born 1956): née Anand, Sanjay Gandhi’s wife, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader
Rahul Gandhi (born 1970): Rajiv Gandhi’s son, Congress leader
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (born 1972): Rajiv Gandhi’s daughter, Congress leader
Varun Gandhi (born 1980): Sanjay Gandhi’s son, BJP leader

The Gandhi family history has been politically turbulent and shadowed by violence. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, when Priyanka Gandhi was 12. In 1991 Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a bombing while he was campaigning at an election rally. Priyanka Gandhi withdrew from political life for the next few decades, during which she completed degrees in psychology and Buddhist studies. She married businessman Robert Vadra in 1997. Over the years, the Congress Party has deflected allegations of tax evasion and money laundering against Vadra, declaring them to be false and politically motivated.

In 2008 Gandhi Vadra created headlines by traveling to a prison in Vellore, Tamil Nadu state, to meet Nalini Sriharan, an alleged conspirator in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Nalini had been sentenced to capital punishment for her involvement in the bombing that killed Rajiv Gandhi and 15 others, but her sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment, largely because Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, Sonia Gandhi, intervened for the sake of Nalini’s child. Gandhi Vadra later said that the meeting had been her way of “coming to peace with the violence and loss.”

Political career

Gandhi Vadra has been a reluctant politician despite early predictions, based on her resemblance to Indira Gandhi, that she was destined for glory. Those who shared this opinion reportedly included Indira Gandhi herself. According to a memoir by the former prime minister’s aide Makhan Lal Fotedar, Gandhi told him, “People will see me in her.” However, Gandhi Vadra resisted all attempts to thrust her into the political spotlight, preferring to focus on family life and leaving the duties of public life to her mother and brother. Gradually, she took on a behind-the-scenes role in the Congress Party machinery. She assisted in election campaigns in the constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh state, both being Gandhi strongholds. She appeared at political rallies ahead of the 2004 elections to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian parliament), campaigning for Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli and Rahul Gandhi from Amethi.

Formal entry into politics

In 2014 the Congress government at the country’s administrative center was unseated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won the general election with an absolute majority of 282 seats out of 543. It formed a government with Narendra Modi as prime minister. After that electoral defeat, Gandhi Vadra emerged from the shadows and took on a formal, more visible role within the Congress Party. In January 2019, just four months before the next general election, she was appointed the party’s general secretary in charge of the eastern region of Uttar Pradesh, which sends the highest number of elected representatives to the Lok Sabha of all Indian states (80 out of 543 seats).

Congress’s 2019 election defeat

Without enough time to craft an effective campaign, Gandhi Vadra could not help the party deliver a victory in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress Party lost the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to the BJP; in Uttar Pradesh it won just a single seat. Sonia Gandhi retained her seat in Rae Bareli, but Rahul Gandhi was defeated in Amethi. In 2020 Gandhi Vadra’s poll strategy jurisdiction was extended to cover all of Uttar Pradesh in the run-up to assembly elections in the state in 2022. Again the Congress Party failed to perform well, winning 2 seats out of 403 in the lower house of the state legislature.

2024 Lok Sabha elections and later

Gandhi Vadra’s role and visibility increased during the Lok Sabha elections of 2024. Known for her oratory skills and fluency in Hindi, she was the Congress’s star campaigner in Uttar Pradesh and made appearances in other states as well. She joined the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, a tour of India led by Rahul Gandhi to promote unity and justice, accompanying him on the Uttar Pradesh leg of the journey. The Congress massively improved its performance in the 2024 elections, winning 99 seats (an increase from 52 in 2019). It won 6 seats in Uttar Pradesh and its ally the Samajwadi Party won an unexpected 37 in the state. Moreover, the Congress and its allies managed to reduce the BJP’s majority in the Lok Sabha, and, although Modi returned to power, he had to do so in a coalition government. Gandhi Vadra’s increasing prominence in the party is considered as having been talismanic for the Congress.

Also in 2024 Gandhi Vadra made her electoral debut, winning a by-election for Wayanad, Kerala, by a large margin, The Wayanad constituency had been vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who had run for office from two separate seats—Wayanad and Rae Bareli—in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and had opted to retain the latter seat.

Gitanjali Roy

Indian National Congress

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Mahatma Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu on the Salt March

Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Harry S. Truman

Sonia Gandhi, Hillary Clinton, Karan Singh, and Rahul Gandhi

For Students

Indian National Congress summary

Indian National Congress

political party, India

Also known as: All-India Congress Party, Congress (I) Party, Congress Party, Indian National Congress-Indira

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 20, 2025 • Article History

Quick Facts

Byname:: Congress Party

Date:: 1885 - present

Areas Of Involvement:: national liberation movement

Related People:: Mahatma Gandhi; Jawaharlal Nehru; Mohammed Ali Jinnah; Priyanka Gandhi Vadra; Indira Gandhi

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What is the Indian National Congress?

When was the Indian National Congress founded?

What role did the Indian National Congress play in the Indian independence movement?

What policies have historically been supported by the Indian National Congress?

Is the Indian National Congress’s Gandhi family related to Mahatma Gandhi?

News •

PM Narendra Modi has given instructions to ensure no deficiency in Chidambaram’s treatment: Gujarat BJP • Apr. 9, 2025, 11:04 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Rahul Gandhi writes to President Droupadi Murmu urging her intervention in Bengal teachers’ crisis • Apr. 9, 2025, 12:51 AM ET (The Indian Express)

P. Chidambaram faints at Congress meeting in Ahmedabad, hospitalised • Apr. 8, 2025, 7:18 AM ET (The Hindu)

Congress to have massive organisational reshuffle: Venugopal • Apr. 8, 2025, 5:03 AM ET (The Hindu)

Congress to showcase Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel’s legacy in AICC session in Gujarat • Apr. 8, 2025, 12:04 AM ET (The Hindu)

Indian National Congress, broadly based political party of India. Formed in 1885, it dominated the Indian movement for independence from Great Britain. It subsequently formed most of India’s governments from the time of independence and often had a strong presence in many state governments. Since 2014 it has been out of power at the central government level.

(Read Indira Gandhi’s 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)

History

The pre-independence period

Anti-colonial thought in India can be traced back to the East India Company’s political and commercial activities in the 18th century, and it intensified in the mid-19th century. After the establishment of the British raj, organized nationalist movements, such as the Indian Association, were formed to advance the cause of greater participation by Indians in administrative affairs. These were precursors of the Indian National Congress, which was founded by Allan Octavian Hume, a British official in the Indian civil service, and Indian nationalist leaders, such as Dadabhai Naoroji. The Congress Party first convened in December 1885 in Bombay (now Mumbai), with 72 members and W.C. Bonnerjee as president. During its first several decades, the party passed fairly moderate reform resolutions, though many of its members were becoming radicalized by the increased poverty that accompanied British imperialism.

In the early 20th century the party began to transform into a nationwide movement in response to the partition of Bengal (1905–11). An “extremist” faction emerged within the Congress Party, consisting of the “Lal Bal Pal” trio (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal) and Annie Besant. This faction began to endorse a policy of swadeshi (“of our own country”), which called on Indians to boycott imported British goods and promoted Indian-made goods. Disagreements between the extremists and the moderates, led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, intensified over the next several years and culminated in a suspended session at Surat (now in Gujarat state) in 1907. By 1917 the extremists had begun to exert significant influence by appealing to India’s diverse social classes, and Besant (who had started the Home Rule League in 1916) became the party’s first woman president.

In the 1920s and ’30s the Congress Party, led by Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, began advocating nonviolent noncooperation. The change in tactics was precipitated by the protest over the perceived feebleness of the constitutional reforms enacted in early 1919 (Rowlatt Acts) and Britain’s manner of carrying them out, as well as by the widespread outrage among Indians in response to the massacre of civilians who had gathered at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, that April. Many of the acts of civil disobedience that followed were implemented through the All India Congress Committee, formed in 1929, which advocated avoiding paying taxes as a protest against British rule. Notable among those acts was the Salt March in 1930 led by Gandhi. Another wing of the Congress Party, which believed in working within the existing system, contested general elections in 1923 and 1937 as the Swaraj (Home Rule) Party, with particular success in the latter year, winning 7 out of 11 provinces. As the independence movement progressed, the Congress Party revised its initial goal of dominion status to Purna Swaraj (“Complete Self-Rule”); the party made this resolution public on January 26, 1930.

When World War II began in 1939, Britain made India a belligerent without consulting Indian elected councils. That action angered Indian officials and prompted the Congress Party to declare that India would not support the war effort until it had been granted complete independence. In 1942 the organization sponsored mass civil disobedience, called the Quit India Movement, to support the demand that the British leave India. British authorities responded by imprisoning the entire Congress Party leadership, including Gandhi, and many remained in jail until 1945. After the war the British government of Clement Attlee passed an independence bill in July 1947, and independence was achieved the following month. In January 1950 India’s status as an independent state took effect.

Postindependence dominance of the Nehru clan

From 1951 until his death in 1964 Jawaharlal Nehru dominated the Congress Party, which won overwhelming victories in the elections of 1951–52, 1957, and 1962. The party united in 1964 to elect Lal Bahadur Shastri and in 1966 Indira Gandhi (Nehru’s daughter) to the posts of party leader and thus prime minister. In 1967, however, Indira Gandhi faced open revolt within the party, and in 1969 she was expelled from the party by a group called the “Syndicate.” Led by K. Kamaraj and Morarji Desai, the Syndicate formed a party called Congress (Organisation [O]), composed of the old guard. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s New Congress Party, also called Congress (Requisitionists [R]), scored a landslide victory in the 1971 elections, and for a period it was unclear which party was the rightful heir to the Indian National Congress label.

Rajiv GandhiIndian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, 1985.

In the mid-1970s the New Congress Party’s popular support began to fracture. From 1975 Gandhi’s government grew increasingly more authoritarian, and unrest among the opposition grew. The Emergency—a period of 21 months in which the Constitution of India was suspended—was declared in June 1975, and it was severely criticized for the curtailment of civil liberties by Gandhi’s government. In the parliamentary elections held in March 1977 at the end of the Emergency, the opposition Janata (People’s) Party scored a landslide victory over the Congress Party, winning 295 seats in the Lok Sabha (the lower chamber of the Indian Parliament) against 153 for the Congress Party; Gandhi herself lost to her Janata opponent.

On January 2, 1978, she and her followers seceded and formed a new opposition party, popularly called Congress (I)—the I signifying Indira. Over the next year, her new party attracted enough members of the legislature to become the official opposition, and in 1981 the national election commission declared it to be the “real” Indian National Congress. (In 1996 the I designation was dropped.) In November 1979 Gandhi regained a parliamentary seat, and the following year she was again elected prime minister. In 1982 her son Rajiv Gandhi became nominal head of the party, and, upon her assassination in October 1984, he became prime minister. In December he led the Congress Party to an overwhelming victory in which it secured 401 seats in the legislature.

Although the Congress Party remained the largest party in Parliament in 1989, Rajiv Gandhi was unseated as prime minister by a coalition of opposition parties. While campaigning to regain power in May 1991, he was assassinated by a suicide bomber associated with the Tamil Tigers, a separatist group in Sri Lanka. He was succeeded as party leader by P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was elected prime minister in June 1991.