Sonia Gandhi's birthday: Interesting facts about former Congress president

Sonia Gandhi. Pic/AFP

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi will celebrate her 77th birthday on December 9. Sonia Gandhi has been the longest-serving President of the grand-old party while witnessing several highs and lows in the political arena.

One of the most prominent politicians of India, Sonia Gandhi was born on December 9, 1946. She joined politics in 1997 and was elected as the President of Congress in 1998.

She has held the post of Congress President since 1998 and has been a Lok Sabha MP since 1999. She led the Congress for 20 years. She was back in the saddle in 2019 as Congress' interim chief after Rahul Gandhi resigned after the party's defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. In the 2004 General Elections, she led the electoral campaign of her party which secured the largest number of seats.

On Sonia Gandhi's birthday, here are some interesting facts that you must know about the former Congress president:

• Sonia Gandhi was born on December 9, 1946, in Lusiana, Vicenza in Italy. She was brought up in a traditional Roman Catholic family.
• After completing her primary education at local schools, she moved for language classes to Cambridge, England, where she met Rajiv Gandhi, and later married him in 1968.
• She took over as the party leader in 1998, seven years after the assassination of her husband, Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister of India, and remained in office for twenty-two years.
• She is the longest-serving President in the 125-year history of the Congress party.
• Under her leadership, the Congress went on to form the government post the 2004 elections in coalition with other centre-left political parties.
• Gandhi has since been credited for being instrumental in formulating the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which was re-elected to power in 2009.
• In 2007, she was named the third most powerful woman in the world by the same magazine and was ranked 6th in an exclusive list in 2007.
• In 2010, Gandhi was ranked as the ninth most powerful person on the planet by Forbes magazine. She was ranked 12 in 2012 in Forbes' powerful people list.
• Sonia was also named among the Time 100 most influential people in the world for 2007 and 2008.