Priyanka Gandhi enters politics in India
India’s Congress party has deployed their latest weapon, popular member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, younger sister of Congress Party president Rahul Gandhi.
She will oversee the party’s election campaign in the eastern half of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most popular state, which is critical to the outcome of May’s national elections and try to beat Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Charismatic Ms Vadra, whose great-grandfather and grandmother and father were prime ministers has always played an important role in politics, advising her mother, Sonia Gandhi and brother Rahul Gandhi.
Priyanka is a natural politician than her elder brother, and liken her to Indira Gandhi, her grand mother. Her acceptance of a larger former role in the campaign as party general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh will galvanise grassroots Congress workers in the state, as eighty parliamentary seats are up for grabs.
Her appointment follows unexpected victories for Congress in a trio of state elections in BJP strongholds.
Priyanka will join up and coming young Congress leaders including Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot sons of important Congress politicians. Uttar Pradesh contest now looks set for a fierce three-way battel between BJP, Congress and an alliance of Powerful caste-based politicians Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati.
After years of seeking a normal life largely out of public life the 47-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has suddenly entered the spotlight.
`Her enigmatic figure, charisma and her presence alone electrifies people as this is something that will energise the Congress cadres.
1972, New Delhi born Ms Vadra, the youngest of the two children of Rajiv Gandhi and his Italian born wife, Sonia. Her early childhood spent in a home with her parents, brother and her grandmother Indira Gandhi, who was then the prime minister. Ms Vadra imbibed politics over the dinner table.
In 1984 Indira was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, Rajiv a reclutant politician who had previously worked as a pilot for Air India, was elevated to the premiership, was also murdered less than seven years later, his grief stricken widow and children retreat from the public eye.