After 20 years of hypothesis over when she is going to take the leap, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is all set to enter the electoral enviornment and Parliament, that’s if she wins the Wayanad bypoll on November 13.
Given the constituency’s political profile — it has virtually 43% Muslims, 13% Christians, round 10% tribals, and seven% Dalits — that may be very probably. For lengthy, Wayanad has been one of many Congress’s most secure seats and Priyanka acquired an enthusiastic response when she went to file her nomination papers final week.
Each the Gandhi siblings made an emotional pitch to the folks of Wayanad, with Rahul saying that the constituency would now have two MPs on a regular basis, one elected and the opposite him. The choice for Priyanka to enter parliamentary politics is in contrast to 2004 when the Gandhi household determined that it will be Rahul, not Priyanka, who would contest the Lok Sabha elections. It was then stated that Priyanka’s youngsters have been younger and wanted her round. Had she come into politics within the years that adopted, she might have very properly change into a rival pole within the occasion. Sonia Gandhi, from all accounts, was clear about who the occasion chief needs to be.
At the moment, Rahul has come into his personal and is accepted as the highest boss within the occasion, extra assured than he was 5 years in the past when his sister entered lively politics. Her position now’s prone to be secondary.
In the course of the latest Lok Sabha elections, at one stage it appeared Priyanka may contest from Rae Bareli. It might have been a pure subsequent step for her after years of nursing the seat for her mom. Rahul was anyway contesting from Wayanad and he declared his intention to struggle from Rae Bareli solely after voting was over within the Kerala constituency.
As issues turned out, Rahul now represents a seat within the North and Priyanka might symbolize one within the South. Their grandmother Indira Gandhi, who Priyanka resembles, had chosen the South over the North a number of occasions. In 1980, she gave up Rae Bareli and retained Medak (now in Telangana), when she bounced again to energy. In 1977, the South had stood together with her when the Congress was worn out all around the North within the election held after the Emergency. A yr later, she started her comeback journey from the luxurious inexperienced, espresso plantation-dotted constituency of Chikmagalur in Karnataka, the place she gained a bypoll.
I bear in mind the curiosity Priyanka sparked when she accompanied her mom to Bellary to struggle in opposition to the BJP’s star performer Sushma Swaraj in 1999. Stopping in Hyderabad on the best way again, I used to be struck by the variety of occasion staff who pitched for Priyanka to affix lively politics for she “reminds us of Indira amma”. It took the occasion (or the household) 1 / 4 century to make that call. In consequence, Priyanka is contesting her first election at 52 and Rahul is already a five-time MP. India too has moved on, with 65% of India underneath 35, and a fading reminiscence of Indira Gandhi’s rule.
Priyanka and North-South tensions
If elected, Priyanka will symbolize the South at a time when North-South tensions are rising, one thing mirrored in Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s name to folks within the South to have extra youngsters. There’s rising angst within the southern states that the upcoming delimitation train, due in 2026, will work in opposition to the South simply because it has managed its inhabitants. The northern states, alternatively, haven’t accomplished so properly. However they stand to achieve as a result of their bigger populations will improve the variety of MPs they ship to the Lok Sabha, the train contingent on the decadal Census that has been delayed. Delimitation, in brief, is a political time bomb ticking away.
How will Priyanka, whose household is accepted by the North and the South alike, navigate this difficult terrain? Changing into an MP from Wayanad, and being who she is, will give her a uncommon opening to interact with each the North and the South. Will she seize it as a possibility, which may allow the South to view itself not as a sufferer however as a powerhouse of latest concepts and profitable endeavours?
Moreover, how will she be certain that the Congress will get strengthened south of the Vindhya? It’s potential that Priyanka is handed cost of a marketing campaign. She was sought as a campaigner by occasion managers throughout the Lok Sabha elections. The CMs of Karnataka and Telangana, and the opposite state models requested for her, given her attraction amongst girls voters who’re rising as an necessary constituency for each occasion.
The flip facet
There’s additionally a flip facet to the Priyanka story. Having three members of the Gandhi household in Parliament on the similar time sends its personal sign, that the dynastic precept and never democratic functioning that Rahul Gandhi speaks of is strengthening.
It additionally seals the management query within the Congress. With each the siblings of their fifties, they’re prone to name the photographs a minimum of for an additional 20 years. That being the case, staying on the fitting facet of the household might change into much more pronounced within the occasion as the best way to get forward.
Priyanka is thought for considering on her toes politically and giving it again pretty much as good as she will get. In 1999, she requested the folks of Rae Bareli if they’d vote for Arun Nehru, her father Rajiv’s third cousin and the person who had “betrayed” him. That one-liner was sufficient to sink Arun Nehru’s makes an attempt to get elected.
Priyanka has additionally handled Narendra Modi’s cost of “parivarwaad (dynasty politics)” head-on, talking concerning the “shahadat (martyrdom)” of Indira and Rajiv. It’s in spite of everything folks, she has identified, who elect the members of the “household”. It’s also equally true that an abnormal Congress employee akin to Kishori Lal Sharma and never a member of the Gandhi household may also defeat Smriti Irani in Amethi when given an opportunity, an opportunity he didn’t get for years.
How will Priyanka’s entry into Parliament have an effect on Rahul’s politics? The siblings will collectively up the ante in opposition to the BJP. The household can be recognized to take selections collectively and never publicly air their variations. However what occurs if Priyanka outshines Rahul and this results in a sharpening of the divide between the 2 teams loyal to them?
Priyanka’s electoral debut will, subsequently, flip a web page within the ongoing story of the Indian Nationwide Congress, coming because it does when the occasion has proven indicators of revival.
(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Categorical, has coated the final 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the writer of How Prime Ministers Resolve)
