As a new Gandhi enters the House, a look at Nehru-Gandhis’ Parliamentary journey

Here is a look at the parliamentary stints of some key members of the Nehru-Gandhi family since the period of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, remained in office continuously over multiple terms for nearly 17 years since Independence — the longest premiership in India so far. Nehru’s contributions to Parliament and the making of a modern India are widely considered to be seminal.

Jawaharlal Nehru seen with Swaran Singh and Lal Bahadur Shastri. (Express archive)

Nehru had moved the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly on December 13, 1946 – from which the Preamble to the Indian Constitution springs. He had also moved the first amendment in Parliament to the Constitution on May 16, 1951, adding “public order” and “friendly relations with foreign states” to Article 19 (2), which contained the restrictions to the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19 (1) (a). The amendment also added the word “reasonable” to restrictions, thus laying down that any curbs must be reasonable.

Between 1952 and 1957, Nehru also steered four legislations to amend family laws to ensure gender equality. These were Hindu Marriage Bill, Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Bill, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Bill and Hindu Succession Bill. With these laws, major reforms like the abolition of polygamy and the provision of equal property rights to daughters were made.

As the Law Minister, B R Ambedkar had looked at reforming family laws, but opposition from within the Congress and other parties had delayed the Hindu Code Bill from becoming a law. This had led to Ambedkar’s resignation. Nehru eventually saw the reform through in Parliament. He, however, also drew criticism for not reforming the Muslim personal law, leaving it to the community.

Feroze Gandhi

Nehru’s son-in-law Feroze Gandhi, who became an MP in 1952, was also a noted parliamentarian. In 1956, he introduced a private member’s Bill that later became the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Act 1956. It is due to the passage of this Bill that the parliamentary proceedings started getting reported.

Feroze Gandhi. (Express archive)

It was Feroze who brought the Mundhra scandal to light when his father-in-law Nehru was the PM.

On December 16, 1957, he said in the Lok Sabha that an investment of Rs 1.25 crore had been made by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in the companies of Haridas Mundhra, an industrialist and stock speculator. In his speech, he did not fight shy of taking on his own party’s government led by Nehru. His intervention led to the setting up of the MC Chagla Commission, which indicted the then Finance Minister TT Krishnamachari over the row, who had to resign.

Feroze was elected from the Raebareli constituency in Uttar Pradesh in 1952 and 1957. He passed away in 1960.

Indira Gandhi

Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi, who also went on to become the PM, steered some important laws in Parliament. Indira’s early prime ministerial stint saw her putting her weight behind two Bills aimed at shifting policy towards the left. These included the Bill to nationalise banks and the Bill to abolish privy purses for the erstwhile princely states’ rulers.

Indira Gandhi with former Union Ministers Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Babu Jagjivan Ram.(Express archive)

Fourteen private banks containing 85% of the country’s bank deposits were nationalised through an Ordinance in 1969. The Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertaking) Bill, 1969, became law on August 9, 1969, and replaced the Ordinance. In 1971, the Indira government amended the Constitution through the 26th Constitutional Amendment to abolish privy purses for the former rulers that was a part of an undertaking to get them to accede to and merge with India.

Earlier, Indira had tried to abolish privy purses in 1970 through a failed constitutional amendment, and then through a Presidential order that was struck down by a court. She made their abolition an issue in the 1971 Lok Sabha elections, and ensured it by amending the Constitution soon after winning the polls.

Indira then also started bringing legislation aimed at centralising power. In 1971, the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was passed to give the government increased powers to detain a person on grounds of security of the state, defence of the country, maintenance of supplies of essential services, etc. It became notorious during the Emergency of 1975-77, brought by Indira, as most Opposition leaders were jailed under its provisions. It was repealed by the Janata Party government in 1978.

During the Emergency, Indira was instrumental in the passage of the Prevention of Publication of Objectionable Matters Act, 1976, which empowered the government to prohibit publications on all the grounds related to Article 19 (2), and to confiscate or shut down printing presses and forfeit security deposit for printing “objectionable matter”.

With the Opposition leaders in jail during the Emergency, the Indira government passed in Parliament the Constitution (Thirty-eighth Amendment) Act, which barred judicial review of the Emergency, and the Constitution (Thirty-ninth Amendment) Act, which stipulated that the election of the Prime Minister could not be challenged in the Supreme Court. The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act made changes to a range of laws, taking away the judiciary’s right to hear election petitions, widening the authority of the Union to encroach on State subjects, gave Parliament unbridled power to amend the Constitution with no judicial review possible, and made any law passed by Parliament to implement any or all directive principles of state policy immune to judicial review. The words “socialist” and “secular” were inserted in the Preamble during the Emergency. Most of the changes were reversed by the Janata government through the 44th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1978.

Sanjay Gandhi

Indira’s son Sanjay Gandhi was elected to the Lok Sabha from Amethi in 1980 but died within months in an air crash. He had landed in various controversies by becoming an unelected power centre during the Emergency, imposing family planning targets. He was also alleged to be behind the violent demolition drive undertaken in Delhi’s Turkman Gate area.

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi became an MP from Amethi in 1981 following the death of his younger brother Sanjay. He was re-elected as an MP in 1984, when he also became the PM after his mother Indira’s assassination. He continued to be the Amethi MP till he was assassinated in 1991.

Rajiv’s first landmark legislation as the PM was the anti-defection law that he brought to reverse the “Aaya Ram Gaya Ram” nature of politics. The 52nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1985 provided for disqualification of a legislator for switching sides unless the party split with at least 1/3rd of its legislature party breaking away, or merged with another party with the consent of at least 2/3rd of its MPs. This move, seen as an attack on political corruption, earned Rajiv the moniker “Mr Clean”, which the Bofors scandal would undo within years.

Rajiv also courted controversy for his decision to overturn the Supreme Court’s Shah Bano verdict through the parliamentary route under pressure from the Muslim orthodoxy. The apex court had ruled that Shah Bano, a divorced woman, was entitled to alimony from her husband, setting aside the husband’s plea that as per the Muslim personal law, maintenance in the case was applicable only for the Iddat period. But under pressure the Rajiv government reversed it by passing the Muslim Women (Protection on Divorce) Act, 1986. This led to his regime being accused of “minority appeasement” by the BJP and other opponents of the Congress.

Sonia Gandhi

Unlike her late husband Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi could not become the PM, but she became the longest serving president of the Congress for over two decades since 1998. She had a strong grip over the government when the Congress-led UPA came to power in 2004 after six years of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA governments.

Sonia had been a Lok Sabha MP since 1999 (first from Amethi and later from Raebareli),and while she did not join the Manmohan Singh Cabinet in the UPA government, some landmark policies like MNREGA and RTI were pushed by her in her role as the National Advisory Council chairperson. The MNREGA law guaranteed 100 days of employment to at least one member of every rural household in a financial year. The Right to Information Act mandated public authorities to provide information sought by an individual within 30 days of the application. Under the RTI law, a person could also file an application with the appellate authority if dissatisfied with the RTI reply.

Sonia delivered a rare parliamentary speech in 2013 when she pitched for the National Food Security Bill, calling upon members to set aside ideological differences to support the measure that would feed millions

of underprivileged people. Not the one to speak much in Parliament but always in command of the Congress and its policies, Sonia entered the Rajya Sabha early this year after being elected from Rajasthan unopposed.

Rahul Gandhi

Sonia’s son Rahul Gandhi first became the Lok Sabha MP from Amethi in 2004. In 2008, his speech in the House in which he mentioned his meeting with Kalawati, the widow of a farmer in Yavatmal who had committed suicide, made waves, drawing barbs from the BJP. Over the years, Rahul gave many speeches, often championing the cause of the poor and farmers.

During a speech in the Lok Sabha in 2018, Rahul alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not look him in the eye and that the BJP members hated him but he had no hatred towards them. He claimed that the Congress was about love with which it built the country and that he would bring it out even from the Treasury benches. After his speech, in an awkward gesture, he walked up to PM Modi and hugged him.

In recent years, Rahul’s speeches have become increasingly aggressive. He has repeatedly named two industrialists, alleging that the government makes policies for them. Just before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul began to pitch for a national caste census, repeatedly saying that institutions had been unfair to the SCs, STs and OBCs.

After the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, which saw the Congress emerging as the single largest Opposition party, Rahul became the LoP in the Lok Sabha. In his maiden speech as the LoP, he told the House that Hinduism is about love. He then pointed towards the Treasury benches and alleged that they are all about hate, which led to a blowback from the BJP members.

Maneka Gandhi

Maneka Gandhi, the widow of Sanjay Gandhi, quit the Congress to join the Janata Dal in 1989, and the BJP in 2004. She had been an MP for multiple times from various constituencies in UP. She was a Union minister in the Vajpayee Cabinet as well as in the previous Modi government. As a minister, she brought legislation like the Juvenile Justice Bill and the anti-human trafficking Bill, among others.

Varun Gandhi

Maneka’s son Varun Gandhi was elected as a BJP MP from UP’s Pilibhit in 2009, from where he won for consecutive three terms until 2024. As an MP, he made news by supporting the Jan Lokpal Bill proposed by the movement led by social activist Anna Hazare. He introduced a private member’s Bill, Representation of People (Amendment) Bill, 2016, to give voters the right to recall their legislator. The Bill proposed that any voter could file a petition to the Speaker signed by at least 25% of the voters of the constituency for the MP to be recalled.

In August 2017, Varun said in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour that MPs should not hike their salaries and that this should be done by an external statutory body.