Narendra Modi (born September 17, 1950, Vadnagar, India) is an Indian politician and government official who rose to become a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In 2014 he led his party to victory in elections to the Lok Sabha (lower chamber of the Indian parliament), after which he was sworn in as prime minister of India. Prior to that he had served (2001–14) as chief minister (head of government) of Gujarat state in western India. The Modi-led BJP (and the BJP-led NDA alliance) won the majority again in the 2019 general election. Although the BJP failed to secure a majority on its own in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led NDA alliance won 293 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, paving the way for Modi to become the country’s prime minister for a third consecutive term.

Early life and political career - Narendra Modi

Narendra ModiIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected to the office in 2014. He won a second term in 2019 and was sworn in for a third term on June 9, 2024.

Modi was raised in a small town in northern Gujarat, and he completed an M.A. degree in political science from Gujarat University in Ahmedabad. He joined the pro-Hindutva Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) organization in the early 1970s and set up a unit of the RSS’s students’ wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in his area. Modi rose steadily in the RSS hierarchy, and his association with the organization significantly benefited his subsequent political career.

Modi joined the BJP in 1987, and a year later he was made the general secretary of the Gujarat branch of the party. He was instrumental in greatly strengthening the party’s presence in the state in succeeding years. In 1990 Modi was one of the BJP members who participated in a coalition government in the state, and he helped the BJP achieve success in the 1995 state legislative assembly elections that in March allowed the party to form the first-ever BJP-controlled government in India. The BJP’s control of the state government was relatively short-lived, however, ending in September 1996.

The BJP’s control of the state government was relatively short-lived, however, ending in September 1996.

Rahul Gandhi (born June 19, 1970, Delhi, India) is an Indian politician and leading figure of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party). He was born the son of Rajiv Gandhi, a grandson of Indira Gandhi, and a great grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, all of whom served as prime ministers of India. His mother, Sonia Gandhi, also played a leading role in the Congress Party. Gandhi is leading the Congress Party and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

(Read Indira Gandhi’s 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)

Rahul Gandhi kept a low public profile for much of his early life. He was homeschooled after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. He began his university education at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi and later attended Harvard University, but he transferred to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, after his father’s assassination, in 1991. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1994, and a year later he earned a master’s degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. He then worked with a consulting firm in the United Kingdom before returning to India and helping establish a firm in Mumbai.

Gandhi entered politics in 2004 when he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time. He kept his seat there following the 2009 contest. In 2013 he was named the Congress Party’s vice president and became its de facto (though never official) candidate for prime minister in the 2014 polls. Although he again retained his Lok Sabha seat in that election, his party suffered a humiliating loss to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the Congress’s image had been tarnished by a string of corruption scandals. Despite the Congress Party’s poor performance at the polls, Gandhi and his mother retained their leadership positions.

He became head of the Congress Party in late 2017 after Sonia Gandhi decided to retire from leadership. He faced a number of criticisms, including that he, as the fourth generation of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, was elitist and lacklustre. He was also criticized by members of the BJP and by members of his own party for his outward display of devotion to Shiva, one of Hinduism’s main deities, which many dismissed as a political stunt meant to tap into the BJP’s appeal to Hindu populism. Still, some observers believed that Gandhi’s display of Hindu devotion and his efforts to unite rival factions within the party helped the Congress outperform the BJP in the 2018 state elections held in the Hindu strongholds of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. The Congress performed only marginally better in the 2019 elections for the Lok Sabha than it did in 2014, however, prompting him to step down from leading the party. Sonia Gandhi was selected to lead the Congress Party until a successor could be found in October 22, when Sonia Gandhi stepped down and veteran congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge took over as party president. In March 2023 Gandhi was convicted of defamation and sentenced to two years in prison for his comment that referred to people with the surname “Modi” as thieves—the same surname as the India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The plaintiff, a BJP legislator named Purnesh Modi, had argued that Gandhi had defamed people with the surname “Modi.” A day after his conviction, Gandhi was disqualified as the member of the Indian parliament. On 4 August, 2023, the Supreme Court of India suspended Gandhi’s conviction and shortly after, he was reinstated as a member of parliament.

Arvind Kejriwal (born August 16, 1968, Hisar, Haryana state, India) is an Indian social activist and politician best known for being the founder and leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP; “Common Man’s Party”). A former Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer turned activist, he founded the AAP in 2012 and led it to a landslide victory in the 2015 Delhi Legislative Assembly elections. He served three terms as chief minister of Delhi.

Early life and career

Kejriwal was born in Hisar, a city in Haryana state, India. He went on to study mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in West Bengal state, graduating in 1989.

Kejriwal worked at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur from 1989 to 1992 before resigning to prepare for the Civil Services Examination in order to enter into government service work. He met Mother Teresa in Calcutta (Kolkata) during this break and performed volunteer work with the Missionaries of Charity for two months. Kejriwal took the Civil Services Examination and began working at the IRS in 1995. He met his future wife, Sunita Agarwal, a fellow IRS officer, during training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration in Mussoorie.

Activism

While working at the Income Tax Department in Delhi, Kejriwal was frustrated by the way his department functioned. In 1999, using donations from family members, he started the organization Parivartan (Hindi: “Change”), which worked to address citizens’ grievances related to public works, food rations, income tax, and electricity. Parivartan identified several misappropriations of funds in public works projects by using the Right to Information Act, which allows citizens to access government records.

In 2006 he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership—a recognition for social transformation and leadership in Asia—for his work with Parivartan. He resigned from the IRS the same year to become a full-time activist and donated his Magsaysay award money to found the Public Cause Research Foundation, a nongovernmental organization. In 2012 he published a book entitled Swaraj (“Self-governance”), in which he describes his views on corruption and Indian democracy.

Narendra Modi (born September 17, 1950, Vadnagar, India) is an Indian politician and government official who rose to become a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In 2014 he led his party to victory in elections to the Lok Sabha (lower chamber of the Indian parliament), after which he was sworn in as prime minister of India. Prior to that he had served (2001–14) as chief minister (head of government) of Gujarat state in western India. The Modi-led BJP (and the BJP-led NDA alliance) won the majority again in the 2019 general election. Although the BJP failed to secure a majority on its own in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led NDA alliance won 293 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, paving the way for Modi to become the country’s prime minister for a third consecutive term.

Early life and political career - Narendra Modi

Narendra ModiIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected to the office in 2014. He won a second term in 2019 and was sworn in for a third term on June 9, 2024.

Modi was raised in a small town in northern Gujarat, and he completed an M.A. degree in political science from Gujarat University in Ahmedabad. He joined the pro-Hindutva Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) organization in the early 1970s and set up a unit of the RSS’s students’ wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in his area. Modi rose steadily in the RSS hierarchy, and his association with the organization significantly benefited his subsequent political career.

Modi joined the BJP in 1987, and a year later he was made the general secretary of the Gujarat branch of the party. He was instrumental in greatly strengthening the party’s presence in the state in succeeding years. In 1990 Modi was one of the BJP members who participated in a coalition government in the state, and he helped the BJP achieve success in the 1995 state legislative assembly elections that in March allowed the party to form the first-ever BJP-controlled government in India.

The BJP’s control of the state government was relatively short-lived, however, ending in September 1996.