Priyanka and UP at forefront of Congress hopes

For many years now, the itinerant con- duct of the Gandhi siblings, mandated to revive the Congress party, has become a joke of sorts in Uttar Pradesh.

They are accused of making these short, well publicized trips to the country’s most populous state, but before their admir- ers settle down to the idea of their pres- ence, they have returned to the comfort of their Delhi address. With the UP elec- tions around the corner, Priyanka Gan- dhi is back to try her long elusive luck. Understandably, there should be little interest in the recent spike of visits to the state by the peripatetic Gandhis’, but this time around the circumstances of their travel to UP has been different.

Expectedly, it has invited the urgent attention of both their followers and detractors, within the media and without. So much so that local TV chan- nels are buzzing with the possibility of the return of the Congress in UP, after Priyanka Gandhi’s audacious trip to the tragedy scarred Lakhimpur Kheri, where protesting farmers were overrun by the speeding motorcade led by the son of the country’s home minister of state. Initially, Priyanka was prevented from entering Kheri or meeting the families of the aggrieved, not allowing her to dominate the headlines. Later, she ac- companied her brother Rahul and met those killed in the incident. Sensing a turn in the people’s mood, the Congress managers played their trump card.

Not only did they make it amply clear that Priyanka would be the face of the Congress party in the forthcoming state elections, but they did one better. Priyanka made an an- nouncement to give 40 percent of party election tickets to women candidates that could change the way the elections will be fought in the state. To sweeten it further for women, she announced that Congress will be giving electric scooters to women of the state, if the Congress is voted to power. Her announcement is having an impact, if the crowds at her rallies are anything to go by. After the emergence of women voters as a new voting bloc as witnessed in West Bengal and Bihar, which upset the calcu- lations of most election pundits, Priyan- ka’s aggressive campaigning has made people sit up. After years of misplaced expectations of the ebullient daughter of the late Rajiv Gandhi transforming Congress fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, many old Congressmen are wondering whether it is for real. Her brother, Rahul Gandhi, had raised similar hopes amongst Congressmen that rely so heavily on the charisma of its leadership.

Rahul had managed to lift the grand old party’s fortunes. He had, for a brief period, suggested a revival of the party when it bagged 22 seats in 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Thereafter, it be- gan to wane in UP and elsewhere with the movement against corruption. Since then, it has been a downward slide. Even alliances with other regional parties have not really delivered. In 2017, Congress had an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, which left about 100 assembly seats. While the SP received around 22 percent of the votes, Congress got an abysmal 6 percent. The clear message from this verdict was that even other parties were not able to transfer votes to the Congress.

In comparison, the BJP won around 39 percent votes- just short of what they got in 2014. A serious drubbing in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when even Rahul Gan- dhi lost in his Amethi seat, made the Congress realize that there is little it could do in the state in the short-term. And there was no long-term solution for them as the BJP and its aggressive, well-funded strategists and fixers went about poaching from it. People with com- plex agendas like Prashant Kishor have gone around reportedly telling many rudderless Congressmen that they had no future in the party. Some of them, perceived to be Gandhi loyalists, have been cajoled to join a party non-existent in UP - Trinamool Congress. It is in these difficult circumstances that Priyanka has jumped into the elec- toral fray. While there was no doubt about her prowess as a politician, her mother and Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, was more cautious about allow- ing her to enter politics. Family faithful and myth builders of the party- not many are left though- fondly recalled how her services were commandeered by Satish Sharma, friend of the late Rajiv Gandhi and the official Congress candidate, who was lagging behind in the poll against an estranged relative Arun Nehru. She destroyed him in a short speech that she thunderously delivered at Rae Bareli where she called Arun Nehru a traitor and asked the local people to defeat him with a big margin.

A grateful Sharma, who died recently, would never fail to recount the magic of Priyanka and how she was the answer to the party’s dwin- dling fortunes. Priyanka has taken far more time to join the party full time, then what Con- gress could really afford - fifteen years too long. Her m