Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi was born on August 20, 1944, Bombay as the eldest son of Smt. Indira Gandhi who became the Prime Minister in 1966. Rajiv Gandhi was born to Feroz Gandhi, who was a political figure and Indira Gandhi who was the first woman Prime Minister of independent India. Rajiv Gandhi was an Indian politician and government official who became the leader of the Indian National Congress and served as prime minister of India (1984–89) after the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi, in 1984.

Rajiv Gandhi was educated at the prestigious Doon School in Dehradun and attended Imperial College, London, and completed an engineering course at the University of Cambridge in the year 1965. After completion of the engineering course, he returned to India and acquired a commercial pilot’s license in 1968, worked for Indian Airlines. After the death of his brother Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi was bought into politics by his mother Indira Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi contested the by-election to Lok Sabha in June 1981 and he was elected from Amethi lok-sabha constituency. In the same month became a member of the national executive committee of the Indian Youth Congress, the youth wing of the Congress Party.

Rajiv Gandhi led the Congress (I) Party to a massive win in elections to the Lok Sabha in December 1984, and his government took vigorous measures to reform the government bureaucracy and liberalize the country’s economy. The Congress party lost the 1989 loksabha elections and Rajiv Gandhi resigned from the post of prime minister in November 1989 even though he remained leader of the party. In May 1991 Rajiv was campaigning for his party in Tamil Nadu state for the next round of parliamentary elections when he and 16 others who were involved in election cam campaign were killed in a bomb blast executed by LTTE terrorists. Rajiv Gandhi was cremated at Vir Bhumi, on the banks of the river Yamuna near the shrines of his mother Indira Gandhi, brother Sanjay Gandhi, and grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru.