Why do the illiterates always question Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s academic credentials?

Sonia is the widow of Rajiv Gandhi, the elder son of Indira Gandhi. When the biggest nationalist party Congress was on the verge of collapsing, she became the backbone of the Congress and ruled for 15 long years. Her two children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are active in Indian politics. Sonia Gandhi’s involvement with Indian public life began after the assassination of her mother-in-law and her husband’s election as prime minister. As the prime minister’s wife, she acted as his official hostess and also accompanied him on a number of state visits.

In 1984, she actively campaigned against her husband’s sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi who was running against Rajiv in Amethi. At the end of Rajiv Gandhi’s five years in office, the Bofors scandal broke out. Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman believed to be involved, was said to be a friend of Sonia Gandhi, having access to the Prime Minister’s official residence. She was accused of many things by Prime minister Modi himself, but nothing has been proven against her so far. Her foreign origin is one of the most attacking points.

She is one staunch India like any one of us, who loves India and serves the country by participating in policy-making whenever her party was in power. She surrendered her Italian passport to the Italian Embassy on 27 April 1983. Italian nationality law did not permit dual nationality until 1992. So, by acquiring Indian citizenship in 1983, she would automatically lose Italian citizenship. Born in a small village near Vicenza, Italy, Gandhi was raised in a Roman Catholic family. After completing her primary education at local schools.

Sonia completed her schooling at the age of 13; her final report card read: “intelligent, diligent, committed would succeed well at the high school for teachers”. She aspired to become a flight attendant. In 1964, she went to study English at the Bell Educational Trust’s language school in the city of Cambridge. The following year, she met Rajiv Gandhi at the Varsity Restaurant, where she was working as a part-time waitress, while he was enrolled for an engineering degree in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. She married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968 and shifted to India.

The couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi (born 1970) and Priyanka Vadra (born 1972). Despite belonging to the influential Nehru family, Sonia and Rajiv avoided all involvement in politics. Rajiv worked as an airline pilot while Sonia took care of her family. She spent a considerable amount of time with her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi. When Rajiv entered politics in 1982 after the death of his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash on 23 June 1980, Sonia continued to focus on her family and avoided all contact with the public.

Her son Rahul Gandhi is a member of the Indian Parliament, representing the constituency of Wayanad, Kerala in the 17th Lok Sabha. A member of the Indian National Congress, he served as the president of the Indian National Congress from 16 December 2017 to 3 July 2019. Gandhi is the chairperson of the Indian Youth Congress, the National Students Union of India also a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust.

Rahul Gandhi attended St. Columba’s School, Delhi before entering The Doon School in Dehradun, Uttarakhand from 1981 to 1983. Rahul went to St. Stephen’s College, Delhi (an affiliated college of the University of Delhi) in 1989 for his undergraduate education but moved to Harvard University after he completed the first-year examinations. In 1991, after Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, he shifted to Rollins College in Florida, USA, and obtained his B.A. in 1994.

He further went on to obtain an M.Phil. from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1995. Before joining politics, Rahul Gandhi, worked at the Monitor Group, a management consulting firm, in London for three years.

In 2002, Gandhi returned to India and set up his technology consultancy viz. Backops Services Private Ltd in Mumbai, where he was one of the directors of the firm. He then opened BackOps UK, a firm which used to acquire defence contracts from foreign companies that supplied to the Indian armed forces.

Sonia Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka Gandhi did her schooling at Modern School (New Delhi) and at Convent of Jesus and Mary, Delhi..She obtained a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi and later a master’s degree in Buddhist studies in 2010. All three of them are highly educated and have the dignity of labour. Whatever they did for a living is in the public domain.