Priyanka’s Entry Makes For Riveting Triangular Pre
Election Pirouette
Saeed Naqvi
The image of
Priyanka Gandhi that has stayed with me is of her campaigning for her mother
and brother in Rae Bareli and Amethi in April-May 2014. It was a desperate bid
to keep the family in play.
The
extraordinary element in the campaigning was that it took place at all. For
weeks, months if not years, Kishori Lal Sharma, assigned by Congress President,
Sonia Gandhi to keep a watch on the two family constituencies, would wait for
Priyanka Gandhi to turn up. Sharma, with a moustache like Hardy’s (as in Laurel
and Hardy), would mobilize crowds, Panchayat leaders, teachers in schools and
colleges to be addressed by Priyanka but on most occasions shamianas had to be
dismantled after the invitees had tea and samosas. Priyanka, ofcourse, had not
turned up.
Sharma,
handpicked by Satish Sharma, Rajiv Gandhi’s pilot friend, was the local
incharge. Priyanka Gandhi had been given the task in overall, political control
of the “fiefdoms”. But her long absences and repeated non arrivals led to
irresponsible speculations about her health.
Her
disinterest or disability must have alarmed the family as Modi mounted
history’s most expensive media campaign. The media was comprehensively under
Modi’s spell. Reports reached Sonia Gandhi that the Congress score in UP was
likely to be zero. Never having lived without power, the family pressed panic
buttons to atleast keep Sonia Gandhi and Rahul in play in the Lok Sabha. That
is when Priyanka galvanized the campaign so effectively that the family’s
“izzat” was saved in the two constituencies. The credit must go entirely to her
for the two elections.
Her husband,
Robert Vadra’s business misdemeanours were, in popular expectation, the
vulnerable points where the opposition might choose to strike. But Priyanka
turned the game around. She raised the subject herself. “I am confident like my
grandmother always was that the truth will eventually come out”. What saddened
her was not that the opposition had tried to humiliate (she used the expression
“zaleel kiya”) the family but that her “bewildered” children had to be
explained what they were hearing.
Indians are
nothing if not a feudal people, holding on to their hierarchies adoringly. It
is the dream of the lowest in the land to enact the “princely” image and come
riding a horse as a bridegroom on marriage day. Imagine, then the “princess”
from the country’s premier family, taking “her” people in the family pocket
borough into confidence on the humiliations that the opposition has tried to
heap upon her. How evocative. Will not the people be moved?
Priyanka has
what in Hindi is called “chhab” or elegance, in the way she carries the sari on
her tall frame, just like Indira Gandhi. In her public engagements she follows the
stately dictum:
“Favours to
none, to all she smiles extends,
Oft’ she
rejects but never once offends.”
In her speech
she comes across as someone who has grown up among Kashmiri aunts and uncles,
with clear diction. It is possible that she picked up the cadences of her
diction from limited exposure to her extended Kashmiri family. In this she is
far removed from Rahul’s blandness of tone and expression.
Priyanka’s
persona is potentially a very promising package for public life but with two
caveats. There is no assessment available of her intellectual or cultural
pursuits, areas that were reasonably cultivated in Indira Gandhi. The second caveat
is on her ability for hard work. What her brother, the party President, said
while announcing her candidature is fairly ambitious. Priyanka and Jyotiraditya
are not being sent to UP for two months but for much longer. “We want to have
our Chief Minister in UP.” That will require staying power.
All the
empirical data we have so far confirms one fact: she has the stamina for one
short burst of energetic campaigning. There will be a question mark on her
stamina as a long distance runner. She has demonstrated strong instincts of
self-preservation. Towards this end she can work for the family. The unknown
quantity is this: can political ambition be ignited in her breast. Her status
as Mrs. Vadra may be an obstruction.
For the
Mayawati-Akhilesh combination Rahul’s move comes across as:
“Willing to
wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a
fault and hesitate dislike.”
Rahul has
explained it nicely. “I respect Mayawatiji and Akhileshji and we shall defeat
the BJP together.” If requested, he said, he was open to talks with the SP-BSP
combine. What else he said in the same sequence expresses either pique or
determination. “We shall not be on the back foot.” Playing on the front foot
would entail a leadership role in the UP alliance. This would be an outlandish
negotiating gambit. Ofcourse, the Congress is the country’s premier upper caste
party. That the state of Ganga, Jamuna, Triveni, Kashi, Mathura, Ayodhya,
should be timidly conceded to the lower caste formations, is anathema to the
party. The prospect makes it feel hollow in the pit of its stomach.
Nothing can be
done about the discomfort because the party’s performance in recent elections
has been dismal. The formula for seat distribution in UP was straightforward:
BSP, SP, Congress, RLD would be entitled to the number of seats in which they
came second, that is, 34, 31, 5, 2 in that order. Against this backdrop the
Priyanka shock may be designed to pressure BSP-SP to open negotiations for more.
Seat adjustments placing a premium on winnability against the BJP is one way to
go. But that will not gain it seats – it will have to search beyond the formula.
Otherwise will it play spoiler. Can it? Or will it sting the BJP by weaning
away the Brahmins from the arch Thakur, Yogi Adityanath?
Mamata
Banerjee’s alliance jamboree in Kolkata did not sideline the Congress but it
sidelined Rahul Gandhi by inviting Sonia Gandhi instead. The former Congress
President is aiming at retirement. Not only did she not go to Kolkata
(Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi were sent instead) but it is
believed she has also decided not to contest from Rae Bareli. Will Priyanka inherit
that seat? That will change the whole game.
# # # #
Now all eyes are on her.
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