Is Priyanka's entry a wasted opportunity for Cong?

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s decision to appoint sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, as the All India Congress Committee General Secretary in-charge of Eastern Uttar Pradesh in January 2019 settled one of the longest-running questions in Indian politics. Will the younger Gandhi sibling, reputed for her keen political instincts and her well-regarded ability to connect as a public speaker, make her political entry?

The decision showed the Congress had finally decided to shed its inhibition about bringing out its last, and according to some, its most potent weapon, at a time when it faces the prospect of imminent extinction in national politics. And yet a couple of months after that decision, it needs to be asked whether the Congress has used up its most talked about resource at a time when it is not in a position to dictate the agenda on how best to make use of Priyanka Gandhi’s talents.

In fact, it would be somewhat incorrect to even say that she has been in politics for a couple of months. It is well known that she has been a part and parcel of the Gandhi family’s key decisions, whether personal or political, for a very long time now. In addition, she has also been overseeing the management of her mother Sonia Gandhi’s constituency, Rae Bareli, and is a sort of guardian figure to the twin constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli, since her brother’s political entry from the former seat in 2004.

In 2014, she also had a key role in planning and fine-tuning the Congress campaign. At that time she operated mostly from Rahul Gandhi’s official residence and coordinated the entire exercise, while Sonia and Rahul Gandhi were campaigning throughout the country. Her role in deciding TV interviews of Rahul Gandhi’s and brokering peace during disputes in party affairs on many occasions have also come to light.

Therefore, it becomes even more pertinent to ask whether the Congress’ big gamble is paying off?

Let’s examine what Priyanka Gandhi has managed to do so far in this election: She has gone beyond the boundaries of Amethi-Rae Bareli to campaign in a swathe of Eastern UP and beyond. On April 4, when Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination papers from the second seat in Wayanad in Kerala, she accompanied him. She later Tweeted: "My brother, my truest friend, and by far the most courageous man I know. Take care of him Wayanad, he won't let you down." She was in Silchar, Assam on April 12 to canvass support for Sushmita Dev, who is the party's Mahila Morcha president. She also held a roadshow in UP’s Ghaziabad, where she was campaigning for the party candidate, Dolly Sharma.

But for the most part, her campaign has been limited to Eastern UP, although she has gone beyond strict geographical boundaries. She began her ‘Naav Yatara’ (boat journey) from her great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru’s seat, Allahabad (now Prayagraj), to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha seat, Varanasi. On her ‘Ganga Yatra’ she established connections with the Hindu pilgrimage sites of Prayag, Vindhyachal and Varanasi. On March 29, she also visited the Hanuman Garhi temple in Ayodhya but skipped a visit to the make-shift temple dedicated to Ramlala at the disputed site. The second phase of her Ganga Yatra from Varanasi to Ballia via Ghazipur is slated to begin from April 21 or 22.

Her UP foray did garner a lot of attention and captured the media’s imagination and also prime time space on news channels, which the Congress is so desperately seeking.

But should the Congress have used her more extensively in a nation-wide campaign, especially given her ability to speak with far more credibility and effectiveness on the theme of “change” that the party has been trying to sell?

It is true that Priyanka’s overall utility will rest on whether she is able to bring the Congress back into reckoning in UP, the state where most of its Prime Ministers were elected when it was at the peak of its powers.

But that would be a tall order even for someone described by party leaders as their ‘brahmastra’, or the ultimate weapon.

The Congress has been out of power in the state for 30 years since it was routed in the 1989 Lok Sabha polls. It took just 15 seats in that crucial election, while the Janata Dal walked away with 54 of the 85 Lok Sabha seats in undivided UP.

Post 1989, Congress became virtually irrelevant in UP politics. It won only five in the 1991 and 1996 Lok Sabha polls. Its worst moment came in 1998 when it failed to win even a single seat. Its tally stood at 10 in 1999 and nine in the 2004 general elections. The party’s successive bids to wrest power in Assembly elections have also failed. Barring a good show in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, when it sprang a surprise by winning 21 parliamentary seats on its own, the Congress’ story in Uttar Pradesh is one of a deepening crisis.

Therefore, there are questions regarding whether Priyanka Gandhi’s ‘Yatras’ will mop up votes for the Congress in this election or even in the near future. There is also a general belief as far as the Gandhis go that good crowds don’t always translate into votes. As Ram Vilas Paswan, now in the National Democratic Alliance and earlier close to the Gandhi family, said: “People will come to see her and listen to her but will not waste their vote on Congress” in UP, where the party has been out of the power game for 30 years.

There have been some indications of what the Congress has in mind. During one of her interactions with party workers in UP, Priyanka Gandhi had asked them to make preparations for the 2022 Assembly polls. In the run-up to the 2017 Assembly polls in UP, poll strategist Prashant Kishore, who was then working for the Congress, had tried hard to convince the Congress leadership to project Priyanka Gandhi as the party’s chief ministerial face. To his exasperation, they chose to go with former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and later formed an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, led by Akhilesh Yadav. However, the Congress-SP tango failed to break the jinx for the Congress. Their ‘UP Ke Ladke’ campaign involving Rahul and Akhilesh bombed, and BJP stormed to power with a massive majority in the state.

Priyanka is perhaps the last hope for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, the state where the legacy of Nehru-Gandhi family resonates more than elsewhere. But whether this is sufficient to revive the fortunes of Congress in UP and elsewhere is unclear. The party is also hamstrung in projecting her nationally for the twin reasons that she should not eclipse her brother Rahul, who struggles in the role of a mass leader, and anxiety that the alleged corruption charges against her husband, Robert Vadra, should not tar her image.

Meanwhile, the suspense continues on whether she will contest in the ongoing polls, amid new buzz around her candidature from the PM’s seat, Varanasi. For the time being though, this is being considered as headline management. But it seems rather wasteful for a party fighting to stay afloat that it should unveil its biggest star only to get better press coverage.