Word: sonia
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...hopes center round it." In an important way, the old hopes of India's founding fathers also exploded on May 22, 1991. The desperation of the hour was vividly illustrated by the Congress Party's resort to nominating Gandhi's Italian-born and determinedly apolitical widow Sonia to the party presidency. Her polite refusal, returned within a day of the offer, forced the party to look within for the first nondescendant of Nehru who might hold the reins of government since Lal Bahadur Shastri briefly succeeded the late patriarch in the gentler year...
...Later Sonia Gandhi, 44, and her 19-year-old daughter Priyanka quietly escaped from the residence and flew to Madras on an Indian air force plane to claim Rajiv's body. The rest of India was in shock. By government order, shops and offices remained closed, and security forces patrolled the capital. A crucial decision came when elections commissioner T.N. Seshan put off the second and third main rounds of voting for a month. Election-related mayhem had taken 229 lives across the country even before Gandhi's assassination; in its wake, 26 more people died. A week of national...
...wonder Congress elders turned immediately to Sonia Gandhi, 44, as party leader. But Sonia is a widow with no desire for power. She never wanted her husband Rajiv to enter politics, much less succeed his mother. It was Sonia who cradled Indira's head as she lay dying from assassins' bullets, and friends note that after the shooting in 1984, she became obsessed with the safety of her husband and children. Behind the dark glasses she wore during public appearances, her eyes constantly searched crowds for a possible assassin. Says a friend: "What she was most afraid...
...Sonia's aloofness has helped make her a formidable and somewhat unfathomable figure. She assiduously tended Rajiv's constituency in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh state, but apparently disliked politics. Though a naturalized Indian citizen ! since 1983, she is Italian by birth, and almost certainly would have faced strong opposition on that ground alone...
...medical tent. Since suffering a pelvic stress fracture this summer, Jones has been at rehab more than practice. The senior's performance was the highlight of the Crimson's afternoon, however. Jones finished the 3.1-mile course in 18:19, a minute-and-one-half behind winner Sonia O'Sullivan of team champion Villanova...