Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi marked a stunning comeback on Tuesday (June 4), emerging at the centre of an alliance that made deep inroads into ruling party strongholds.
Gandhi’s party, the opposition INDIA alliance, exceeded estimates in early vote counts and during a press conference he said the alliance would meet on Wednesday (June 5) to decide their next move.
The alliance, led by Gandhi’s centrist Congress party, was leading in over 230 seats, higher than expected. Congress alone was leading in nearly 100 seats, almost double the 52 it won in 2019 – a surprise jump that is expected to boost Gandhi’s standing.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist party lost its outright majority for the first time in a decade as voters defied predictions of another landslide.
Rahul Gandhi entered politics in 2004 under the apprenticeship of his Italian-born mother Sonia Gandhi, who served as the Congress President.
He contested and easily won the Amethi seat, a stronghold of the Nehru family in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most important political state.
