When it comes to their first family, Congressmen offer a strange formula: three is equal to one. Congress leaders insist there is complete unity in the trinity of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi and his younger sister Priyanka Gandhi. And they claim Priyanka's formal entry into Congress leadership, whenever that happens, will only strengthen Sonia's or Rahul's roles at the helm.
In the recent past, the news of Priyanka joining the party and leading the poll campaign broke in the second week of October, 2013. Though the party spokespersons had, for the record, denied this story then, many Congress leaders had felt that, "it was only a matter of time." Now, The Economic Times on Monday has reported that soon after the assembly polls in the next few months, Priyanka will join the party as either general secretary overseeing the party organisation or as the Uttar Pradesh party chief.
The significance of this news story for politicos who look at the Gandhi family for some sort of an insurance against sure electoral defeat is that it offers fresh hope of revival of Congress' fortunes. These so-called leaders completely rely on the Gandhi family to win elections, even their own seats, and that is the sole reason why they accept the Gandhi family leadership. This winnability factor in turn acts as a glue keeping the party together. Even a turncoat like Natwar Singh in a recent TV interview admitted that the Congress will split into five, the moment the Gandhis retire from politics.
Most of the members of the working committee such as Manmohan Singh, Ahmed Patel, Digvijay Singh or the permanent invitee P Chidambaram cannot win elections and hence have not contested the last polls. The rest have lost their elections. And someone like A K Antony, who may still win because of the peculiar communal situation in Kerala, will not contest for some strange reason. But all these veterans, well past their prime, are angry with Rahul and take out their phlegm on his close advisers.
Yet, they cannot question the Gandhi family leadership because they do not have an alternative among themselves or elsewhere. Most Congress leaders give the analogy of the RSS-BJP relationship to explain their dependence on the Gandhi family. Many BJP leaders hate the diktats from Nagpur, but without RSS support and guidance its political offshoot, BJP, cannot win elections. This complete dependence also offers discipline to the organisation.
But unlike RSS, the Gandhis lead the Congress organisation and hence have to accept the moral responsibility for all that goes wrong with the party too. So, the family and the loyalists have found this new strategy to introduce an untested person in the family, keeping the organisation's hope afloat and giving the party men a strong reason to remain loyal and glued to the family.
It is in this context, Priyanka's formal entry into Congress becomes important. Congress is down in the dumps. Though the murmurs have not attained a critical volume, Rahul's leadership is being questioned by veterans within the party. Sonia is supposed to have recovered from a serious illness and may not be able to lead the party in the coming polls. So, the trinity itself would want the third person to share the burden of hope --- of the unelectable Congress "leaders" across the country.
But the veterans have a diabolic intent too. They feel that by pushing Priyanka into the arena they would be hurting and hitting at Rahul and his advisers and would be creating another power centre that would diminish Rahul's central role in the party. This could be a case of grave miscalculation as the siblings work in tandem. Often Priayanka works out of Rahul's Tughlaq lane residence and both are absolutely protective about the other.
Any way, Priyanka has been an integral part of the Gandhi family's decision-making process for long. In fact, Sonia Gandhi had Priyanka by her side when she attended her first political rally at Sriperumbadur in 1998 before taking over the reins of the party. Till Rahul joined the party in 2002, Priyanka was widely speculated to be the fourth generation Nehru-Gandhi.
So, her entry into Congress leadership will only formalise something that has remained informal all these 16 years.
