In boost for India's opposition, Nehru-Gandhi scion Priyanka gears up for electoral debut
After years of shunning the spotlight, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family and granddaughter of India's first female prime minister, has signalled that she is ready to take the political centre stage by contesting a parliamentary seat for the first time.
"Priyanka is a great public speaker, and the moment is perfect for her to enter parliament," Uday Chandra, an assistant professor of government at Georgetown University, told This Week in Asia.
Chandra said Priyanka's political acumen would strengthen the opposition and she, along with other members of the Nehru-Gandhi family, "will make life very hard indeed for [Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government] in parliament".
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Priyanka spearheaded the recent election campaign of the opposition Indian National Congress in Uttar Pradesh and other parts of the country's Hindi-speaking belts, where the party and its allies secured surprising victories to deny the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an outright majority in parliament.
The 52-year-old has often been compared to her grandmother, Indira Gandhi, who served two terms as prime minister and commanded a mass following.
On Monday, Priyanka's elder brother and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi resigned from one of two parliamentary seats he won in the election to make way for his sister to contest the constituency.
Indian law allows a candidate to contest an election from a maximum of two constituencies, but the winner can retain only one seat and must resign from the other within 14 days of the election results.
Rahul will retain Uttar Pradesh's Raebareli, which has been a stronghold for the Gandhi family, while Priyanka will now contest Kerala's Wayanad seat in a by-election that is expected to be held within six months of the Election Commission of India notifying the seat's vacancy.
The BJP secured only 240 seats in this election, far fewer than the 303 it won in 2019. Modi is now dependent on coalition partners for his third term.
The result has opened the way for the resurgence of Congress, which many had predicted would be marginalised under a third Modi government. Analysts say with Priyanka assuming a more central position, Rahul will be able to focus on his role as the leader of the opposition.
Political commentator Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay says the family's emotional scars - Indira was assassinated in 1984, while the siblings' father Rajiv Gandhi was killed in a suicide bombing in 1991 - may have led Priyanka, a mother of two children, to refrain from taking on a more prominent role in politics until her recent success in Uttar Pradesh.
Priyanka's marriage to businessman Robert Vadra, who has been accused of corruption and faces charges of money laundering, could be another reason for her late entry into the electoral battlefield.
"He definitely is a handicap because of his business deals, which remain under the cloud. That may have held her [Priyanka] back possibly all these years," Mukhopadhyay said. "I think they realise that it's time now to call the bogey."
However, Priyanka's decision to contest Wayanad has divided analysts.
Some have praised the move as a message that the Gandhi family will continue to look after the constituency, while allowing Rahul to drive Congress' campaign from Raebareli for the Uttar Pradesh state polls, which are expected to be held by 2027.
Others, however, pointed out that Priyanka's political forte is not India's southern province of Kerala, where Wayanad is located.
"I am a bit surprised by the decision to field Priyanka from Wayanad rather than Raebareli. It's a flip-flop of sorts because she has been in charge of Uttar Pradesh in the past," Chandra said, noting that Rahul had lost to the BJP's Smriti Irani in the 2019 election in the state's Amethi.
Priyanka tirelessly campaigned for family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma, a relatively obscure but seasoned worker who trounced Irani from Amethi this year.
Amethi and Raebareli have traditionally been Congress' strongholds in Uttar Pradesh, where generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family have contested seats in the past.
"I expect Priyanka Gandhi to contest from Amethi next time or Raebareli. The Gandhi siblings will want to keep both as legacy seats," Chandra said.
Congress has a long way to go before it can re-establish itself in Hindi-speaking heartlands on its own, analysts say, as the party had to cede a number of seats in Uttar Pradesh to its regional ally, Samajwadi party.
Mukhopadhyay said Priyanka should have cut her teeth in electoral politics from a tougher constituency like Varanasi, where Modi has been thrice elected and in this election secured his slimmest margin of victory yet.
"She may well have given Modi a big fight ... And losing to the prime minister is no big deal," he said.
Analysts agreed, however, that Priyanka would be playing a bigger role in politics in the coming months.
"She connects well with the masses and has been a very effective campaigner. We will certainly see Priyanka assuming a more important role in Congress in the future," said Ajay Darshan Behera, an international studies professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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