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New Delhi : Once upon a time a powerful person had emerged in Indian politics. Many people indirectly considered him as the Prime Minister of the country. This person was none other than Sanjay Gandhi, the second son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It is said that Sanjay Gandhi, in a way, had become like a ruler in the Congress and also in governance when his mother Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. Sanjay Gandhi, who has been involved in many controversies, has been a personality of curiosity. It is also said about him that he used to like machine toys very much in his childhood and this choice of machines remained with him throughout his life.
interest in machines
Sanjay Gandhi was born on 14 December 1946 in New Delhi. He was the second son of Indira Gandhi and Feroze Gandhi and the younger brother of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. His early studies were done in Dehradun and then in Switzerland’s International Boarding School ‘Ecole de Humanite’. But his interest was less in studies and more in machines. Since childhood, he had a great passion for repairing machines.
strong interest in machines
Sanjay Gandhi, who was always average in studies, had great interest in sports apart from machines. He did not study in any university but did a three-year internship in Rolls-Royce Automotive Engineering in England. He had a keen interest in sports cars and acrobats of planes. He also had a pilot’s license. Even his big role is considered for the beginning of Maruti industry in India.
As soon as Indira Gandhi assumed power
After the death of the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966, Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister of the country and then Sanjay Gandhi left his internship in the middle and returned to the country. After taking over the power of Indira Gandhi, there were many changes in the Congress and as Indira Gandhi’s hold in the party became stronger, Sanjay Gandhi’s status in the party also increased.
free hand from indira gandhi
It is believed about Indira Gandhi that she did not ignore anything of Sanjay Gandhi, nor did she go against any decision of Sanjay Gandhi or cancel it. This was the reason that in this way Sanjay Gandhi had got a kind of parallel power and due to not having a formal position, he had become completely autocratic.
maruti car arrival
In 1971, Indira Gandhi’s cabinet proposed the production of a people’s car, which could be affordable for India’s middle class. Because of this, a company named Maruti Motors Limited came into existence. Sanjay Gandhi became its Managing Director and the company easily got the license to manufacture and sell cars. Indira Gandhi was also being criticized in this whole matter, but the India-Pakistan war of 1971 diverted everyone’s attention from it.
The funny thing is that till Sanjay Gandhi was alive, the company did not even produce a single car and later this company emerged as a big and successful car manufacturer in the country. In fact, even before the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi became active in politics and this project in a way got shelved. But being out of power till the next elections, Sanjay Gandhi again became active in the party.
This time Sanjay Gandhi has shown with his skill that he is not a pampered child of a mother, nor a person with a crazy dictator mentality. He breathed life into the Congress at the party level and in the elections of 1980, it was his clever strategy that brought Indira Gandhi back to power with a thumping victory, against whom the whole country stood against Indira Gandhi three years ago. But on June 23, 1980, he died in a plane crash.
