Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has been at the centre of discussions among netizens ever since the G20 summit in India.

Her candid rendezvous with Indian PM Narendra Modi at the G20 Summit in New Delhi has been flooding the social media.

Even memes depicting a so-called “love chemistry” between Meloni and Modi have flooded the social media in India.

But who is Giorgia Meloni? What is her political history?

Why is she compared to fascist dictator Mussolini?

Born on 15 January 1977, Giorgia Meloni has been serving as the prime minister of Italy since October 2022.

She is the first woman to hold the position of Italy PM.

In 1992, Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party founded in 1946 by former followers of Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

She later became the national leader of Student Action, the student movement of the National Alliance (AN), a post-fascist party that became the MSI’s legal successor in 1995 and moved towards national conservatism.

A right-wing populist and nationalist, her political positions have been described as far-right.

She describes herself as a Christian and a conservative, and she claims to defend “God, fatherland, and family”.

Meloni has expressed controversial views, such as in 2020, when she praised Giorgio Almirante, a chief of cabinet in Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic who produced racist propaganda and co-founded the MSI.