Sonia Gandhi (born Antonia Edvige Albina Maino on 9 December 1946) is an Italian-born Indian politician and the President of the Indian National Congress, one of the major political parties of India. She is the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi and belongs to Nehru–Gandhi family. After his assassination in 1991, she was invited by the Indian National Congress to take over the Congress but refused and publicly stayed away from politics amidst constant prodding by the Congress. She finally agreed to join politics in 1997; in 1998, she was elected as the leader of the Congress.

Since then, Sonia Gandhi has been the President of the Indian National Congress Party. She has served as the Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in the Lok Sabha since 2004. In September 2010, on being re-elected for the fourth time, she became the longest serving president in the 125-year history of the Congress party. Her foreign birth has been a subject of much debate and controversy. Although Sonia is actually the fifth foreign-born person to be leader of the Congress Party, she is the first since independence in 1947.

Subramanian Swamy (born 15 September 1939 in Chennai, India sometimes spelt Subramaniam Swamy) is an Indian politician, academician and an economist. He is the President of the Janata Party of India. He also presently serves as chairman of the SCMS Board of Governors of the SCMS Group of Educational Institutions in Kerala.

Swamy has previously served as member of the Planning Commission of India and Cabinet Minister of India. He has written extensively on foreign affairs dealing largely with India-China, India-Pakistan and Indo-Israel relation and is also a published author.

In November 1978, Swamy was member of the Group of Eminent persons called to Geneva to prepare a report of the United Nations (UNCTAD) on Economic Co-operation between Developing countries (ECDC).Swamy simplified trade procedures and formulated a new export strategy which became the forerunner of trade reform adopted subsequently. In 1994, Swamy was appointed as Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade by then Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. This was perhaps for the first time that an Opposition Party member was given a Cabinet rank post by the ruling party.

Rahul Gandhi ([ˈraːɦʊl ˈɡaːnd̪ʱiː]; born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician and member of the Parliament of India, representing the Amethi constituency. Gandhi is the general-secretary of the Indian National Congress. He is the grandson of Feroze Gandhi and Indira (née Nehru) Gandhi, and fourth-generation scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Rahul Gandhi was born in Delhi on 19 June 1970 as the first of the two children of Rajiv Gandhi, who later became the Prime Minister of India and Sonia Gandhi, who later became President of Indian National Congress, and as the grandson of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He is also the great-grandson of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Priyanka Vadra is his younger sister.

Rahul Gandhi attended St. Columba's School, Delhi before entering The Doon School in Dehradun (Uttarakhand), also his father's alma mater, from 1981–83. Meanwhile, his father had joined politics and became the Prime Minister on October 31, 1984 when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Due to the security threats faced by Indira Gandhi's family from Sikh extremists, Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka were home-schooled since then. Rahul Gandhi joined St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1989 for his undergraduate education but moved to Harvard University after he completed the first year examinations. In 1991, after Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by LTTE during an election rally, he shifted to Rollins College due to security concerns and completed his B.A. in 1994. During this period, he assumed the pseudonym Raul Vinci and his identity was known only to the university officials and security agencies. He further went on to obtain a M.Phil from Trinity College, Cambridge University in 1995. After graduation, Rahul Gandhi worked at the Monitor Group, a management consulting firm, in London. In 2002 he was one of the directors of Mumbai-based technology outsourcing firm Backops Services Private Ltd.

Narendra Damodardas Modi (Gujarati: નરેન્દ્ર મોદી; born 17 September 1950) is the current Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat. Born in a middle class family in Vadnagar, he was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his wife Heeraben. He has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since childhood also having interest in politics since adolescence. He holds a master's degree in political science. In 1998, he was chosen by L. K. Advani, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to direct the election campaign in Gujarat as well as Himachal Pradesh.

He became Chief Minister of Gujarat in October 2001, promoted to the office at a time when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel had resigned, following the defeat of BJP in the by-elections. His tenure as chief minister of Gujarat began on 7 October 2001, and he is the longest serving Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. In July 2007 he became the longest serving Chief Minister in Gujarat's history when he had been in power for 2063 days continuously. He was elected again for a third term on 23 December 2007 in the state elections, which he had cast as a "referendum on his rule".

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Hindi: अटलबिहारी वाजपेयी, Birth: 25 December 1924 in Gwalior) is a veteran Indian statesman who served as a non congress Prime Minister of India three times, viz. 13 days in 1996, 13 months from 1998 to 1999, and lastly a five year's term from 19 March 1998 until 19 May 2004. A parliamentarian for over four decades, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha a record nine times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha. He also served as the Member of Parliament for Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, until 2009, when he retired from active politics due to health concerns. Vajpayee was one amongst the founder members of erstwhile Jana Sangh and had been its president also. He was also the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Morarji Desai. When Janata government collapsed Vajpayee merged his entire party into a fresh party and named it as Bharatiya Janata Party in the interest of nation. A poet-politician Vajpayee has been the liberal face of BJP.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born to Krishna Devi and Krishna Bihari Vajpayee on 25th December, 1924 in a respected middle class Brahmin family. His birthplace was Shinde Ki Chhavani, a small town in Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh (then known as Central Province). His grandfather, Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee, had migrated to Gwalior from his ancestral village of Bateshwar, Uttar Pradesh and his father, Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, was a poet and a schoolmaster in his hometown. Vajpayee attended Gwalior's Victoria College (now Laxmi Bai College), and graduated with distinctions in Hindi, English and Sanskrit. He completed his Post Graduation with a (M.A.) degree in Political Science from DAV College, Kanpur, securing first-class. Later he became a full time worker of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and served the Rashtradharma, Veer Arjun and Panchjanya newspapers as a journalist. Like other full time workers of the Sangh, Vajpayee never married and decided to dedicate his entire life for the service of the nation.