Thousands cheered and showered flower petals on Rahul Gandhi, the scion of Indian politics' first family, as he filed his candidacy Saturday for elections that begin later this month. Gandhi, 38, a fourth-generation political leader, will run for a second term in Parliament from the Amethi district in Uttar Pradesh, India's largest and politically most important state.
The district has been represented by his father, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, who now heads the ruling Congress party. Gandhi is not being projected as a candidate for prime minister in the elections.
That position will go to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who will serve a second term if Congress is voted back into power, party officials have said. Still, Gandhi is viewed as a potential leader and eventual candidate for the country's top post. The Nehru-Gandhi family and the Congress party have dominated India's political history since it gained independence from Britain in 1947.
Gandhi has remained ambiguous about his future plans. Reserved compared to many fiery Indian politicians, Gandhi has told his supporters to be patient, arguing that leadership must be developed slowly. His great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the founding fathers of modern India, was the country's first prime minister from the time of independence until his death in 1964.
His grandmother Indira Gandhi and his father Rajiv were also prime ministers. Tragedy has long been part of the family legend. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards in 1984, sparking bloody riots. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 by a female suicide bomber. Rahul Gandhi first contested a seat in Parliament in 2004 and won the Amethi seat by a margin of more than 300,000 votes.
His mother accompanied him Saturday in filing his papers in Sultanpur, the Amethi district headquarters. Voting in the national elections will be held April 16, April 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13 and ballots will be counted May 16. Congress' prospects for re-election are unclear. The global economic slowdown has shifted the focus from its main achievement _ rapid growth in the last few years.
It also has faced criticism for the bungled handling of the Mumbai terror attack in November, when 10 gunmen rampaged through the city for three days, killing 164 people. However, the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is also in disarray.
Its leadership is aging and fragmented, and its anti-terror line was criticised as too harsh in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. The two main parties also have seen their vote banks eroded by regional parties focused on local issues or on particular castes in the country's complex Hindu social system.
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