Let Congress not rule out the Priyanka factor

So, is Priyanka Vadhra ready to take the plunge into active politics? With brother Rahul Gandhi having said yesterday that he is ready to take up any responsibility that the party may entrust upon him, it is perhaps time Congress considers a policy rethink on Priyanka’s role in the next parliamentary elections, due in about four months from now. India’s ruling Congress party issued a statement through its media cell on Monday, insisting that Priyanka’s role in campaigning for the general elections in the world’s largest democracy will be limited to the two constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareili only, where Congress vice-president Rahul and mother and party president Sonia Gandhi are the candidates, respectively.

Priyanka herself has said time and again that her role in politics is and will be limited to nursing these two constituencies. However, for three consecutive days last week, Priyanka had marathon sessions with senior Congress leaders at the 12, Tughlak Road residence of her brother in New Delhi. While Sonia and Rahul were present on the third day, the first two days’ sessions were strictly one-on-ones between Priyanka and senior party functionaries. These meetings set the rumour mills on an overdrive in the corridors of power in New Delhi.

“We were discussing the issue of paving more roads in rural India,” was what Jayram Ramesh, who is also the Union Minister for Rural Development, apparently told mediapersons about the tete-a-tete. Even without getting into the semantics of Ramesh’s benign statement, one cannot but wonder if there is more to Priyanka’s closed-door confabulations than charting India’s rural development road map over steaming-hot cups of afternoon tea.

The All India Congress Committee (AICC) session on January 17 may see some sort of an attempt by India’s GOP (grand old party) to infuse excitement and hope in an otherwise moribund outfit beaten black-and-blue by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the principal opposition, in the recent state elections. And the least that a Congress supporter would expect from Friday’s AICC session is a bigger role for Rahul — working president, president or even the prime ministerial candidate. In fact, with Rahul’s statement yesterday, a formal announcement anointing Rahul for the top job seems most likely.

But given the current jaundiced state of Congress, what if Sonia decides to walk that extra mile and gets Priyanka into the bigger picture — as a Congress candidate in the next elections? The Congress leadership knows it only too well that with every passing day and hour, chances of retaining power at the Centre are fast receding. Moreover, merely naming Rahul as a prime ministerial candidate may not be the clincher. Rahul has been the nerve-centre of Congress politics for some time now. He was at the helm for the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar state elections. He was the party’s face for the recent elections in five states. His unprecedented attack on his own party, for having supported a contentious bill that would allow lawmakers with criminal records retain their parliamentary seats, came to be seen as an attempt to project himself beyond the blinkered vision of petty politics. But none of these could cut much ice with the voters. And today, Congress faces its worst crisis since the 1996 Lok Sabha polls, when it had won a meagre 140 seats.

A strategy reboot

When defeat seems virtually inevitable, what is the harm in trying out something different? Why can’t the leading party in India’s ruling coalition take a cue from the stupendous success of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and sincerely seek a strategy reboot to counter Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate? When practically the entire nation was expecting a straight fight between Congress and BJP in the Delhi assembly elections, the presence of AAP and its leader Arvind Kejriwal turned the game on its head. Similarly, at a time when just about everyone is warming up to a Rahul vs Modi contest in the Lok Sabha polls, how about adding a new dimension to an evolving political equation by throwing in a surprise variable in the form of Priyanka? With the BJP leadership already confounded by the emergence of AAP on India’s political horizon, the introduction of Priyanka may well lead to a further brand dilution of the Modi juggernaut that was making waves all across India until the other day. When BJP anointed Modi for 2014, it had just Rahul in the matrix. In walked Kejriwal and the urban middle class — a traditional BJP vote bank — suddenly started humming a hot new tune. Now, just throw in Priyanka — the aam admi’s (common man’s) archetypal eye candy for years — into that mix and watch the fun! True, it may still not be enough to salvage the plot that has gone so horribly wrong for Congress. Nonetheless, her presence can at least keep Modi’s plate full — for the simple reason that BJP will then have to devise a game plan to counter Priyanka, apart from training its guns on Rahul and Sonia.

As for the voter — the aam aadmi has had his candyman in the form of Kejriwal, now he may well be seeking the eye candy too!