Rae Bareli: A new political story is being scripted here as India enters the last three rounds of voting, beginning on Wednesday, for the remaining 194 parliamentary seats.
The high-decibel campaign has intensified and both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have sharpened attacks on each other.
As political jibes fly in all directions, Priyanka Gandhi is emerging as the lead voice of the Congress. She is no longer just the star campaigner of her party in Rae Bareli and Amethi constituencies of her mother and brother respectively. She is now “defender-in-chief” of her party’s credibility and her family’s honour. While the BJP has launched sharp attacks on her businessman husband Robert Vadra, she has responded with a counter-offensive directed at Hindutva leader and prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Her first salvo against Modi came during campaigning in a village on Sunday when she said: “This is India and a big heart is needed to run this country and not a 56-inch chest. Not the cruel might of power but moral authority. Instead of hollow and superficial showcase of capabilities, this nation needs determination where one is ready to die to save its culture.”
In the past, Modi has boasted about the size of his chest. Her direct attack on him rattled the BJP and it responded by releasing a video on Vadra, highlighting his alleged dubious land deals.
To journalists, it is not clear whether a combative Priyanka is an outcome of situational necessity or part of a deliberate strategy to position her as the lead voice of her party. But some point out that if she wanted to limit her campaigning to Rae Bareli and Amethi, she would have avoided a direct attack on Modi. She clearly wants her voice to be heard on prime-time TV and reach across India, they added.
A TV journalists who has been covering her campaign for the last two elections, said the discourse is no longer between Congress and the BJP. “When Priyanka talks, it’s the family talking… the family is hitting back,” he said. Moreover, he explained, “she is the most articulate among the Gandhis, she is witty, spontaneous and nothing she says seems rehearsed.”
The BJP, meanwhile, has reacted to her jibes with caution and is avoiding personal attacks on her. When asked to respond on Priyanka’s attacks on her, Modi said on Sunday that it was natural for a daughter and a sister to defend her family and “I don’t have any problem with that”. But Priyanka is not in a mood to retreat from combative posturing. Immediately after the BJP released the Vadra video, she said the BJP was behaving like “panick-stricken rats”.
“There is nothing new in them [the charges by BJP], but let them say whatever they want to. I am not afraid of anyone and will continue to speak against their negative, destructive and shameful politics,” she said in Bhavanigarh village on Sunday.
He combative attitude in recent days has not gone unnoticed here and some journalists say it has eclipsed the campaigns of her mother Sonia and brother Rahul. “There’s an organic leader in Priyanka that doesn’t comes across in Sonia or Rahul,” the TV journalist quipped.
Old-time residents here agree Priyanka is the best person to revive Congress if the party suffers its worst-ever defeat as predicted by some opinion polls.
“She is the fittest person to join politics,” said 87-year-old O.N. Bhargava, a friend of Feroze Gandhi. A photographer who has been covering her election for the last two days said: “Priyanka has the flair of her father Rajiv and the determination of her grandmother Indira. She is the future of Indian National Congress.”
On Monday, she continued with her barbs directed at the BJP: “If they choose to give me gifts, I can choose to reject them. The malice is with them, not me.” Earlier on Monday afternoon, she walked for several kilometres in the city as part of an outreach programme just before the campaigning came to an end at 5pm. Women showered her with rose petals from rooftops as she shook hands with voters in Sarrafa area. Her security detail had a tough time controlling the crowd of Congress supporters who mobbed her at several locations during her campaign.
Priyanka has now moved to Amethi where voting will take place on May 7th.
— Bobby Naqvi is editor of Xpress, a sister publication of Gulf News
