The Power Of Priyanka Gandhi

With the Congress revealing its new trump card in Uttar Pradesh, the party’s political adversaries must recalibrate their electoral calculations for the summer of 2019

- Kaushik Deka

In the late summer of 1999, a 27-year-old Priyanka Gandhi was in Amethi to campaign for her mother and then Congress president Sonia Gandhi who was contesting her first Lok Sabha election. During a media interaction, a reporter asked Priyanka what she thought of the opposition attack on her mother’s foreign origins. Reaching out to the journalist, Priyanka extended her hand and asked: “Do you think I have foreign blood in my veins?”

That was perhaps the first sign of the politically savvy mind the Congress is relying on two decades later to revive its fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, the state that sends 80 members to the 543-strong Lok Sabha—more than any other state. In 2014, the Congress took just two seats in UP, both won by the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family—Sonia in Rae Bareli and Rahul in Amethi.

Priyanka’s entry into formal politics—as eastern UP in-charge (see map)—has not only breathed new life into the moribund Congress in the state, but also suddenly changed the electoral landscape of 2019. UP, which often determines who forms the government in Delhi, is likely to see a three-cornered contest with the Pri yanka-led Congress emerging as the third force besides the BJP and the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance. “She is a gamechanger,” says former Union minister Jitin Prasada. “There is a visible resurgence among Congress workers.” The mood in the party is certainly upbeat, with many even demanding that she contest the general election from Varanasi, directly challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his own constituency.