Notorious: Widely and unfavourably known.
If there’s one person in India who’s more in the news for all the wrong things, then it has to be Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi. Whatever he does trends on Twitter big time and even brief cameos get a lot of bad press for him. A look at 10 pieces of Vadra notoriety…
1. Marrying Priyanka: In the 1990s after the death of Rajiv Gandhi, a lot of people saw his daughter Priyanka as his natural successor more so because of her looks which resembled her grandmother Indira Gandhi.
She was seen as India’s most eligible bachelorette and there was great interest on who she would finally marry. When she tied the knot in 1997, most of India hadn’t heard of Robert and all the talk centred that point. More news articles wondered how he had got Priyanka to marry him in the first place!
2. Deaths in the family: First Robert’s sister died in a car crash in 2001. Then his elder brother committed suicide in 2003. Finally his father was also found dead in New Delhi and police said that he had hanged himself.
There were also news reports that the Dynasty was unhappy with Robert’s late father’s attempts to peddle his influence.
Sonia Gandhi (C), widow of slain former Indian Prime Minister, stands with her newlywed daughter Priyanka (R) and groom Robert Vadra (L) after their wedding at 10 Jan Path, the official Gandhi residence in the Indian capital. Priyanka, wears a south Indian temple sari that had belonged to her grandmother Indira Gandhi.
Image: AFP file photo