Torch passed to next Gandhi

In India, Congress party has lost power since 2014

NEW DELHI — Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India’s most famous political dynasty, took over as president of the main opposition Congress party on Saturday while facing a stiff challenge from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalists.

Gandhi, who took the mantle from his mother, Sonia Gandhi, takes over the leadership of a party that has been losing power to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party since 2014. Gandhi’s party has suffered humiliating defeats in recent state elections despite his active campaigning to win back support.

Sonia Gandhi described her son as a new hope for the Congress as party workers danced, burst firecrackers and distributed Indian sweets to celebrate the generational shift in the leadership.

Gandhi, 47, will be taking on Modi when the prime minister seeks a second five-year term in 2019. Modi has vowed to create a Congress-free India.

In his speech, Gandhi described himself as an “idealist” and said Indian people were getting disillusioned by policies pursued by the Modi government.

He said the Congress party, which had ruled India for decades, took the country into the 21st century through modernization and development. He accused Modi of taking India “to a medieval path where people are butchered because of who they are, beaten for what they believe in and killed for what they eat.”

Gandhi was referring to killings and attacks on minority groups, especially Muslims, since the Bharatiya Janata Party swept national elections in 2014. Most of the violence against Muslims has involved fringe Hindu vigilante groups that have become active in small towns and cities across India. Muslims make up about 14 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people and Hindus about 80 percent.