A son of dynastic politics

RAHUL Gandhi is emerging as the newest national leader from India's famous political dynasty, with the Gandhi-Nehru family often compared to the British monarchy or America's Kennedy or Bush clans.

The patriarch was Jawaharlal Nehru, a hero of the struggle for independence from British rule who became India's first prime minister.

Daughter Indira later took power, as the third prime minister of the Republic of India, ruling for three consecutive terms and a later fourth before her assassination in 1984.

It was Sonia Gandhi, daughter of a Turin builder, who cradled the dying Indira in her arms after she was shot by her Sikh bodyguards. Sonia's husband Rajiv, whom she supported loyally when his government was embroiled an epic corruption scandal in the 1980s, was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber in 1991.

She took over the Congress Party in 1998 but declined the premiership despite leading the party to victory in the 2004 elections. Rahul Gandhi, born in Delhi in 1970, is the youngest of her two sons - the son, grandson and great-grandson of India's prime ministers.