On Friday afternoon in the dusty town of Rae Barili, it was May sunshine. The local ITI ground was filled with crowds from twelve o’clock, and when Priyanka Gandhi Vadra spoke at around three thirty, the ground filled with about one thousand and thirty people roared!
A short speech of only three and a half minutes, counting 210 seconds. The reason for this limitation is that brother Rahul Gandhi, mother Sonia Gandhi and Congress ally Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav were also present in the meeting.
Priyanka did not want to share anyone’s time, but she was the one who received the most spontaneous congratulations. He spoke about their family’s kinship with the soil of Rae Barilly-Amethi, also said something against the propaganda being carried out in the name of Congress in the name of taking away the Mangalsutra.
In the meeting, however, there were more supporters of the Samajwadi Party with red-green flags than the Congress, and they too burst into a frenzy. It will not be wrong to say that Priyanka got more applause than their leader Akhilesh.
In fact, it goes without saying that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is the biggest star campaigner of India’s main opposition Congress. For Priyanka to hold at least one meeting, or to show her face at least once in a road show – for that, the most requests from all over India come to the Congress headquarters.
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Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been involved in active politics for barely five years, despite campaigning for mother Sonia or brother Rahul for the past twenty-five years. In January 2019, the Congress gave him the post of general secretary to oversee the party’s work in eastern Uttar Pradesh, marking the beginning of his active politics.
But not in the 2019 election, Priyanka Gandhi is not contesting this time either!
Millions of Congress supporters in the country had hoped that Priyanka herself would contest the polls from her old Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, which was vacated by Sonia Gandhi joining the Rajya Sabha a few months ago, or at least from the nearby seat of Amethi.
Those two seats can be called the average of the Congress, or more specifically, the Gandhi family. Since the sixties, Indira Gandhi’s husband Feroze Gandhi has been the MP for Rae Bareli, although Indira, Sonia and Rahul (and their close family members) have repeatedly won from here. That tradition was broken in 2019, when BJP leader Smriti Irani wrested the Amethi seat from Rahul Gandhi.
To protect the mother’s seat, or to answer Smriti Irani like a face, ‘Priyanka Didi’ herself will enter the election contest this time – thousands of letters, emails or requests were also sent to the AICC with this request.
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But putting water to all the speculations, the Congress announced at the very last moment that Rahul himself will not contest from Rae Bareli (as his second seat). And not Priyanka in Amethi either, the Congress nominated KL Sharma, a long-time election agent and loyalist of the Gandhi family.
Although Priyanka has said that she will and is giving night and day to win over KL Sharma – still the question remains that why is she not fighting it herself?
Many young and old Congress leaders have been describing Priyanka as the party’s ‘Brahmastra’ for a long time. Many people think that she has a great similarity with Indira Gandhi’s face and attitude, that is another big reason for her popularity.
Why Congress did not throw a strong challenge against Narendra Modi by taking this ‘Brahmastra’ directly to war, it is a big joke in this election in India!
Looking for an answer to that mystery, I attacked the Congress headquarters at 24 Akbar Road in Delhi and Rae Barilly-Amethi, known as the ‘Khastaluk’ of the Gandhi family in Uttar Pradesh.
Where is Priyanka Gandhi’s appeal?
After the death of grandmother Indira at eighty-four and her father Rajiv Gandhi seven years later, the whole of India saw a teenage girl sitting in a dejected posture next to a pyre during the live telecast of their funerals. The girl sometimes held her mother’s hand tightly and comforted her.
Apamar India’s immense love and affection with that fatherless girl since then.
In the nineties, when the girl from India’s so-called ‘first family’ married Robert Vadra, a young man from a very ordinary family, it also increased her popularity among us.
It is true that Robert Vadra has been accused of corruption worth hundreds of crores of rupees much later, but Congress leaders believe that it has not tarnished Priyanka Gandhi’s image even a single drop.
Meanwhile, her mother Sonia Gandhi and elder brother Rahul Gandhi have also entered politics – but despite campaigning for family members, Priyanka Gandhi has not been seen in the larger arena of Congress politics for long.
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In 2008, he went to Vellore Jail and held an emotional secret meeting with Nalini Sriharan, who was sentenced to life in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The country came to know about it much later, after the information surfaced that Priyanka did not object to Nalini’s release.
In 1999, when she was campaigning as a mother in Amethi, she had the opportunity to have a long talk with Priyanka Gandhi one summer morning on the lawn of the guest house at Gauriganj Hospital.
A century ago, he had said in words, “Our entire family has actually sacrificed for the country. So it doesn’t matter what I want personally, I may have to come to politics either today or tomorrow!”
Still, it took another twenty years for him to enter active politics for some unknown reason.
Sometimes I saw him campaigning in Rae Barili-Amethi during the 2014 elections.
Not only the big public meetings, but also went to small road meetings at the intersections – Amlanabadne entered the huts of the poor and inquired about the well-being of the people of the village. Even then, the road show was not so much as waving hands in the car, but Priyanka was also seen walking for a long time.
But every time the polls were over, Priyanka Gandhi also disappeared from politics.
At least that was the case until five years ago. Finally came to politics, but not yet in the fight for votes!
While Priyanka also excels in Hindi, old-timers find Indira Gandhi in her looks and speech, her delivery is almost inimitable – these have no doubt given her a different kind of popularity.
A section of Congress leaders feel that Priyanka Gandhi’s ‘appeal’ is intact because she has kept a distance from politics for a long time. The occasional use of ‘Brahmastra’ also diminishes its credibility – hence their argument that the Congress did not actually do anything wrong by using it to ‘lift’ Priyanka.
However, Samajwadi Pati moderate leader Brijsharan Yadav, who came to see Priyanka at the Rae Bareli grounds, again suggested, “Turupka ikka bhi sahi timing me istemal karna chahye! Khel Khatam Hone Ka Baad Kya Faida!”
Simply put – if Priyanka Gandhi is the trump card, then she has to be used at the right time? What’s the point of discarding the card after the game is over?
In other words, why did the Congress not make him a candidate this time, Brijsaran can’t understand anything in his head!
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Possible reasons for not contesting the polls
One can hear at least three or four reasons why Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is not contesting the polls this time around the ‘Congress circuit’ or talking to ordinary Congress workers. BJP leaders and workers, however, will add two or three more!
The explanation that is being heard the most is that if Priyanka is stuck in a Lok Sabha seat, who would go around the rest of the country with the inhuman effort that Priyanka is campaigning in this election? How would he go to distant Morena, Jodhpur or Ludhiana if stuck in Amethi or Rae Barili?
Priyanka Gandhi herself gave a similar argument in an interview given to a couple of channels. And said, he accepted what the party decided.
In the words of Javed Ansari, a veteran journalist from Delhi who has covered the Congress for almost three decades, “The biggest ‘impact player’ of the Congress this time is definitely Priyanka. Even Rahul Gandhi does not have the ability to speak in Hindi, the ability to connect with people. It would have been a trap for the BJP if he had been caught campaigning at a center in that place!”
Veteran political analyst Rashid Kidwai, who has been writing about the Gandhi family for a long time, points to another reason behind this.
Mee Kidwai was telling BBC Bangla, ‘Priyanka has realized that this 2024 election is Rahul’s election. Rahul deserves recognition for the ground he has built ahead of the polls and the kind of passionate campaign he has been running across the country on the Bharat Joro Yatra. If Priyanka contests the polls, the main focus may shift away from her brother, which she never wants.”
But Rahul-Priyanka against Narendra Modi, what is the harm in using this pair of brothers and sisters, it is not understood by many ordinary supporters of the party!
Priyanka Gandhi’s picture outside the Congress headquarters in Rae Bareli is the biggest – half her size – Sonia, Rahul, Indira, Rajiv – everyone else! In that office, all the officials of the small-big-medium level of the party are almost in agreement, Priyanka did not fight this time, what happened, the opportunity is lying ahead!
Youth Congress National President BV Srinivas argued that since Rahul Gandhi will definitely win from two constituencies in South India’s Waynar and North India’s Rae Bareli and he will have to give up one – in that case, Priyanka will finally go to Parliament after winning the Rae Bareli seat vacated by her brother.
Which means, maybe within a fortnight Rae Bareli will go to polls again and then the people of Rae Bareli will happily line up to vote for the ‘Priyanka Bahen’.
But in that case there will be no difference in the result of the 18th Lok Sabha election of India, this is it!
The number of BJP supporters who spoke to them in Rae Bareli or met their candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh’s workers in the office – they all gave a single reason for not contesting Priyanka Gandhi’s vote!
For example: One, he is afraid! Two, if the candidate is a candidate, the Election Commission will have to give an account of the assets and Priyanka does not want to expose all those things worth hundreds of crores of rupees!
The third number is more serious: Sonia Gandhi does not want the daughter to become an MP and go to the parliament and the son also fade away! As usual comments are unnecessary.
‘Priyanka Bahen Ko Vi Laye’
Sonia Gandhi’s short and emotional speech from Friday’s public meeting in Rae Barili was the main point – our many years of pulse with the soil here! Today I can not fight in the election, but I am handing over my son to you!
Instantly thousands of people erupted into loud cheers – but also soft murmurs of, ‘Priyanka bahen ko vee laiye’!
I mean, we will definitely take the responsibility of winning Rahul, but we also want sister Priyanka among us – that was the demand of the people to Sonia Gandhi!
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The people of Rae Barilly-Amethi may feel entitled to have Priyanka Gandhi as their MP, too, given her nearly 65-year-old kinship with the Gandhi family – and that’s not an unfair claim.
But why Priyanka Gandhi is still not being asked to contest at any center is really a puzzle.
India’s veteran journalist and popular YouTuber Ajit Anjum has been roaming around Rae Barilly-Amithi for the past few days, I asked him exactly this question while leaving the public meeting at ITI ground.
Ajit Anjum laughed and said, “To be honest, I don’t even know the real answer! Although some say that Priyanka is actually trying to humiliate Smriti Irani by winning the family Gomsta instead of fighting in Amethi.
“But if you ask me to guess as a political observer, I would say that there might be a fear of Priyanka at work somewhere. Or any hesitation or hesitation for any reason! That’s just my guess though, nothing more.”
“But one thing I can say for sure, only Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka know the answer – it is guaranteed that even Congress president Mallikarjun Kharg has no idea about the real reason!”
Meanwhile, Priyanka Gandhi’s long convoy started leaving the field, blowing dust, and she left for the next public meeting.
(Voting in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Barilly and Amethi constituencies will be held in the fifth phase of India’s Lok Sabha elections on Monday, May 20. Counting of votes will be held simultaneously with the rest of the country, on June 4.)