1st LD Writethru: India's Rahul Gandhi takes over as opposition Congress party chief

NEW DELHI, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- India's Nehru-Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi Saturday took over as the country's main opposition Congress party chief, days after being elected unopposed.

The 47-year-old assumed the reins of the Congress from his mother Sonia Gandhi, who had been the president of the 132-year-old political party since 1998, at a grand function in Delhi.

The elevation took place at 11:00 a.m. local time when Gandhi was given a formal certificate of being elected the Congress president unopposed from the party's central election authority.

Gandhi was in fact elected to the top post Monday after no one else in the Congress challenged him in the party's internal election that was held a week earlier.

Till his elevation, Gandhi held the post of Congress vice-president for over three years.

There had been growing clamor in the party that Gandhi be made the Congress chief as partymen, mostly youths, as many believe he will infuse new energy to the party. Enditem