New Delhi: Calls for Priyanka Gandhi to be given a role in politics are growing by the day, with the Allahabad unit of the Congress party inviting her to contest the Phulpur Lok Sabha seat.
A resolution to this effect passed by the party has been sent to Priyanka’s mother, Sonia Gandhi, who is the national president of the Congress party.
Through the resolution, the local unit of the party has requested her to contest next year’s general elections from the Phulpur seat of Allahabad.
Phulpur holds sentimental value for the elite Gandhi-Nehru family since Priyanka’s great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister, represented this seat in the past. Nehru’s father Motilal Nehru, a Kashmiri Pandit, had settled down in Allahabad.
“We were discussing who should contest the seats of Phulpur and Allahabad. The Congress workers thought that the Phulpur seat has belonged to the Nehru family for decades. We unanimously agreed that Priyanka Gandhi should contest the seat,” Abhay Awasthi, a member of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, was quoted as saying.
Priyanka’s mother Sonia Gandhi and elder brother Rahul Gandhi represent two other family seats of Rae Bareli and Amethi respectively in the Lok Sabha.
The Phulpur seat was won in 2009 general elections by Bahujan Samaj Party leader Kapil Muni Karwariya. The local unit of the Congress party is of the opinion that only someone from the Nehru family can wrest the seat that once belonged to them.
While there has long been pressure on Priyanka, 41, to play a leading role in active politics she has kept out of it due to her family commitments. She has been married to businessman Robert Vadra for 16 years and is a mother of two.
Congress party sources say that the initial reason for keeping her out — family commitments — no longer held logic since her children have grown up.
The Congress party had on Monday denied reports that Priyanka would campaign extensively for the Congress party in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“We are denying the news of Priyanka Gandhi to campaign for 2014 general elections,” Ajay Maken who heads the party’s communications department, had said.
Priyanka has so far restricted her campaign in Rae Bareli and Amethi and virtually looks after the two constituencies since her mother and brother are normally busy looking after affairs of the party as its president and vice-president respectively.
Notwithstanding denials of the Congress party about Priyanka campaigning outside Rae Bareli and Amethi, the party circles are agog with speculation over when she will enter the active politics.
That she has shades of her grandmother Indira Gandhi’s oratory skills and political understanding are beyond doubt. The party circles have all along been saying that Sonia is holding her back as she does not want Priyanka to overshadow her elder brother — a reluctant entrant to politics who has been a lawmaker for nine years.
While Priyanka contesting Lok Sabha election would only add a few more seats to the Congress party’s tally, it is widely understood that she will join politics only after Rahul Gandhi gets firmly established as a politician. He is likely to replace Manmohan Singh as the prime minister if the Congress party manages to retain power in next year’s general elections.
