During his lifetime, he was widely expected to succeed his mother as head of the Indian National Congress and Prime Minister of India, but following his death in a plane crash, his elder brother Rajiv became their mother's political heir and succeeded her as Prime Minister of India and President of the party after her assassination.

[2] Gandhi did not attend university, but took up automotive engineering as a career and underwent an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce in Crewe, England for three years.

[5] In 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's cabinet proposed producing an affordable, locally made car for India's middle class.

Indira Gandhi faced criticism, but the victory over Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War shifted public focus.

[6] A commission was set up by the new government headed by Justice Alak Chandra Gupta which gave very critical report of the Maruti affair.

[7] A year after his death in 1980, and at the behest of Indira, the Union government salvaged Maruti Limited and started looking for an active collaborator for a new company.

In 1974, the opposition-led protests and strikes had caused a widespread disturbance in many parts of the country and badly affected the government and the economy.

Thousands of people, including several freedom fighters like Jaya Prakash Narayan and Jivatram Kripalani who were against the Emergency were arrested.

According to Mark Tully, "His inexperience did not stop him from using the power his mother, Indira, had taken to terrorise the administration, setting up what was in effect a police state.

[11][12][13] He "recruited into the party thousands of younger people, who used threats and force to intimidate rivals and those who opposed Mrs Gandhi's authority or his own.

[15] Out of the five points, Sanjay is now chiefly remembered for the family planning initiative that attracted much notoriety and caused longterm harm to population control in India.

In another incident, after popular Bollywood singer Kishore Kumar refused to sing at a function of the Indian Youth Congress, his songs were banned on All India Radio upon Gandhi's insistence.

This election saw the crushing defeat of not only Sanjay in his constituency of Amethi but also the wiping out of Indira's Congress party throughout Northern India.

[21] In September 1976, Sanjay Gandhi initiated a widespread compulsory sterilisation programme to limit population growth.

India’s democracy was a hurdle: no government could possibly enact laws limiting the number of children a couple could have without incurring punishment at the ballot box.

Indira and Sanjay, the self-styled socialists, inflicting on Indians the humiliation of forced sterilisation in order to appease western loan sharks: the irony was lost on them.

[29][30][31] However, the Janata government's Home Minister, Charan Singh, ordered her and Sanjay arrested on several charges, none of which would be easy to prove in an Indian court.

[32] Subsequently, all the prints and the master-print of the film at Censor Board office were picked up and brought to Maruti factory in Gurgaon where they were burned.

After a significant exodus from Janata party to Charan Singh faction, Morarji Desai resigned as prime minister in July 1979.

Since Charan Singh refused to drop the charges, Congress withdrew its support and President Reddy dissolved Parliament in August 1979.

Before the 1980 elections Gandhi approached the then Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Syed Abdullah Bukhari and entered into an agreement with him on the basis of 10-point programme to secure the support of the Muslim votes.