Mandate 2019- Movers And Shapers Of Indian Politics

They have access and appeal beyond their own parties and are the crucial go-between people in this season of electoral alliances. Meet the movers and shapers of Indian politics.

- Kaushik Deka and Uday Mahurkar

On a December morning in 2016, Dimple Yadav, Lok Sabha MP from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and wife of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, received a call from Aditi Singh, the Congress MLA from Rae Bareli. Singh had a special request for her friend Dimple—Priyanka Gandhi Vadra wanted to meet her. Dimple happily agreed and later introduced Priyanka to not only Akhilesh but SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. A month later, the SP and the Congress announced their alliance for the 2017 assembly election— a deal that fructified primarily through the efforts of Priyanka and Dimple.

Cut to the 2019 Lok Sabha election. While the SP has tied up with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), officially discarding the Congress, Dimple and Priyanka—now the Congress general secretary in charge of eastern UP—met again in Lucknow earlier this month. The two are working to strategically position their contests to minimise electoral damage to their respective parties.

With the Lok Sabha election just a couple of months away, there’s not a dull day for the movers and shapers of Indian politics, as they work overtime to formulate strategies, gauge the public mood, fill in their central leadership with critical data and information and fine-tune the battle plan for the do-or-die seats. They could be the most visible faces of their parties or staunch loyalists or reclusive backroom operators. But what all of them have in common is the ability to break logjams and reach out to leaders across parties, walk the extra mile to strike a hard bargain. They have the courage to take unconventional paths and have proven track records of delivering.