Remembering Indira Gandhi, the 'Goddess Durga' of politics Her political personality compared to Goddess Durga, know more about India's only female PM till date

One of the strongest known women in history, Indira Gandhi has been the second longest serving PM after her own father. Coming from a family of political legacy, she will always be remembered as the central figure of the Indian National Congress party.

Let's have a look at the highlights in the life of the woman of steel:

• Born to the most powerful family on November 19, 1917 -- she was the only child of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

• She was named Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi by Rabindranath Tagore
• As a child, she formed a group of kids called the 'monkey brigade' to spy on police and distributed Indian flags.
• Indira had studied at the Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, Bengal (now West Bengal) under the tutelage of Rabindranath Tagore
• She was further educated in Swiss schools and at Somerville College, Oxford
• She was elected as the president of the Indian National Congress in 1960, and this was her first official introduction to active politics.
• After the death of father Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira also became a member of the Rajya Sabha and the Minister of Information and Broadcasting
• After Lal Bahadur Shastri's abrupt death in 1966, she succeeded him as the Prime Minister
• During her first term as PM, she nationalised 14 banks, and also garnered much support from public for agricultural improvements that led to India's self-sufficiency in food grain production
• In 1975, after she was convicted of an election offence and barred from politics for six years, she imposed Emergency.
• In the year 1980, she was re-elected to a fourth term
• She went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in East Pakistan, which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh
• She continued to serve the nation at this post for almost 14 years, and became the second longest serving PM of India, after her father.
• In 1984, her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her a few months after she ordered the storming of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar to counter the Punjab insurgency
• Her bodyguards had fired 31 bullets at her, of which 30 had hit; 23 had passed through her body while seven were trapped inside her.
• So overwhelming was her political personality that during the election of 1971, opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee hailed her as Goddess Durga.