Can Priyanka weave back the magic of 1999 to win Raebareli for Rahul?
Priyanka Gandhi had made three crucial mistakes between March and May 2019. PTI Photo
Can Priyanka Gandhi Vadra weave back the magic of 1999 in Raebareli for brother Rahul Gandhi when she described the Lok Sabha seat as her ilaqa (territory)?
It had all been very different during the 1999 Lok Sabha elections when Arun Nehru, the great-grandson of Motilal Nehru’s elder brother Nandlal, contested from the Nehru-Gandhi pocket borough of Rae Bareli on a BJP ticket.
Priyanka’s public attack on her uncle came as she campaigned for Congress candidate and family loyalist Satish Sharma.
“Mujhe aap se ek shikayat hai. Mere pita ke mantri mandal mein rehte hue jisne gaddari ki, bhai ki peeth mein chhura mara—jawab dijiye—aise aadmi ko aapne yahan ghusne kaise diya? Unki yahan aane ki himmat kaise hui? (I have a complaint against you. A man who committed treachery while remaining in my father’s ministry, who stabbed a brother in the back—answer me—how did you let such a man in here? How did he dare come here?)” Priyanka asked the voters.
“Yahan aane se pehle maine apni maa se baat ki thi. Maa ne kaha kisi ki burai mat karna. Magar main jawan hoon, dil ki baat aap se na kahun to kisse kahun? (I spoke to my mother before coming here. She told me not to speak ill of anyone. But I am young; to whom shall I speak my mind if not to you?)”
Priyanka’s remarks were so fierce that even an ace orator like Atal Bihari Vajpayee failed to dull their impact.
Vajpayee, who was Prime Minister then, visited Rae Bareli a day after Priyanka’s speech. In his typical style, he took a dig at Priyanka, saying he was “scared” to visit Rae Bareli as it seemed to be someone else’s ilaqa. But it was too late: Arun’s fate had already been sealed.
Arun Nehru died as a disillusioned man in 2013. When he joined the fray in 1999, Priyanka viewed him as someone who had tarnished Rajiv Gandhi over Bofors and joined his opponents.
The year 2019 had, in fact, begun on a promising note for the Congress. It had won Assembly elections held in the previous year in three states—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh—giving the party something to cheer about. On January 24, the Congress formally inducted Priyanka as an All India Congress Committee general secretary. She was dubbed a “game changer” and a brahmastra by her party colleagues and a section of the media. The BJP, however, maintained a studied silence amid reports that the party’s top leadership had issued instructions not to attack her or build a narrative of Priyanka versus Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Just as Priyanka was set to hold her first press conference in Lucknow on February 14, 2019, a convoy of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force came under attack in Jammu and Kashmir, leaving over 40 troopers dead. The entire country was outraged even as Modi bided his time.
The response would come on February 26. The announcement of general elections was on the cards when the Indian Air Force struck deep inside Pakistan, destroying a terrorist camp in Balakot. India had struck back within a fortnight. Modi was seen as a man of action who dared to get even with Pakistan without caring for international opinion or repercussions.
The Ghar mein ghus kar mara narrative brought a great deal of satisfaction and pride to Indian citizens across the country. For days, Priyanka struggled to come out and pick up the threads to launch her poll campaign. By the time the 2019 general elections concluded, the Modi-led BJP had won another decisive mandate. The Congress finished with a paltry tally of 52 of the 543 parliamentary seats where elections were held.
Priyanka made three crucial mistakes between March and May 2019.
One, it was amateurish to have toyed with the idea of contesting against Modi—and then back out of the day.
Modi held a mesmerising show of strength in his parliamentary constituency, Varanasi. On April 21, 2019, Priyanka told the media that she would be happy to contest the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi if her brother Rahul, who was the then Congress president, told her to. “You will find out. If my Congress president tells me to contest, I will be happy to contest,” Priyanka had said.
Priyanka’s second folly, a mix of inexperience and candour, was to have described the Congress as a vote katua in Uttar Pradesh. She told a journalist in the middle of the elections to the 17th Lok Sabha that Congress nominees in the heartland state had been chosen keeping in mind their potential to cut into the BJP’s votes. Even a cursory look at the caste profiles of Congress candidates would have confirmed this, but a public pronouncement, followed by heated TV debates, made Priyanka look like a goofy greenhorn.
Finally, the third and biggest political mistake was to have accepted the thankless job of AICC general secretary in charge of 40 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The grand old party was short of organisational networks, credible leaders, and resources—virtually everything in the region.
There is a Nigerian proverb that says, “When the mouse laughs at the cat, there’s a hole nearby.” In Priyanka’s eastern UP story, there was nothing of that sort.
The author is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ‘24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.