RAHUL'S NEW GAMBIT

The Congress leader decides to renew his fight in UP, but this time from another Gandhi pocket borough, Rae Bareli. Can he overturn the 2019 disappointment? 

- Prashant Srivastava

In a Congress social media post on May 1, Rahul Gandhi was seen playing chess where he draws an analogy between the game and politics. He says that in chess, as one improves in tactics, the opponent's pieces begin to function almost like one's own. The video may have acquired a risibly prophetic tone when, a week later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raked up "Adani-Ambani" in accusatory tones against the Congress. But in the interim, it had everyone a bit foxed in Uttar Pradesh. Would Rahul agree to contest from Amethi? He had appeared to keep a moody aloofness from his old constituency, which he lost to the BJP's Smriti Irani in 2019. Would that end? Would the Gandhi siblings hunt in pairs, with sister Priyanka taking up Rae Bareli, the other pocket borough that mother Sonia Gandhi had vacated as she moved to the Rajya Sabha? Would the Family come to reclaim its northern legacy?