First Female Prime Minister of India
January 19, 1966 - India Elected Indira Gandhi as it's First Female Prime Minister
On this day in 1966, Indira Gandhi succeeded the recently deceased Lal Bahadur Shastri to become the first (and to this date only) female Prime Minister in Indian history.
Following the May 1964 death of her father - Jawaharlal Nehru, a pivotal figure in the Indian independence and the first Prime Minister of Independent India - Gandhi had become Minister of Information and Broadcasting in Shastri's government. Gandhi succeeded him as Prime Minister on this day after Shastri suddenly died.
The following year Gandhi was elected to a 5-year term by the Indian Parliament members of the dominant Congress Party as she led her party to a landslide victory in the national elections of 1971. After being banned from politics due to a voting controversy in 1975, she rallied her political troops and started her own party - the Congress (I) Party - The "I" stood for "Indira". Nine years later Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31st of 1984 by Sikh members of her security guard.
Quote for ToDay:
"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers, is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. - Ben Hecht (1893 - 1964)
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