Opinion Family feeling

Her family’s fate and the Congress’s destiny have always been inseparable, but Priyanka Gandhi’s stepped up personal investment towards the end of this election — perhaps the most arduous the Congress has ever fought — makes the intertwining appear even more seamless. It has also ensured that, in the final reckoning, at the end of an extremely personalised campaign, the spotlight is on Narendra Modi versus the Congress’s first family.

What could this new P factor bring to politics? For the Congress, hobbled as much by the absence of a riveting leadership as by its lack of new ideas, Priyanka Gandhi is clearly a public speaking asset. She has demonstrated a sharp but natural style of political rhetoric, avoiding Sonia Gandhi’s “maut ka saudagar” belligerence as well as the reluctant and mostly oblique manner of attack that Rahul Gandhi trades in. By all accounts, Priyanka has been the sparring partner he seems most discomfited by, be it in countering his “RSVP” attack or his buzzword-heavy speeches. She has not hesitated to go for the jugular, or to wade into the muck.

Leading India, she said, did not call for a 56-inch chest but for a heart as generous as the ocean. And when the BJP attacked her husband and his dubious land deals, she stepped it up a notch, comparing her opposition to a bunch of panicky rats. She has also been playing a larger coordinating role within the party, managing friction between Rahul Gandhi’s team and the old guard. At the same time, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has also been the source of one of the party’s big embarrassments, after details of her husband Robert Vadra’s phenomenal luck with land transactions became public and were predictably seized by the opposition.

Whether or not Priyanka Gandhi Vadra takes up a formal role in politics, she is a compelling player. She will be watched. Her presence is also a reminder that, at least in the foreseeable future, the family cannot be taken out of the party any more than the party can be taken out of the family.