MAPPING THE JOURNEY
Jan 1998: Priyanka Gandhi accompanies her mother, Sonia Gandhi, for her first election campaign in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur; makes a short speech seeking votes for the Congress
Oct 1999: Campaigns for her family friend and Congress candidate, Satish Sharma, in Rae Bareli, asks people if they would vote for a person who stabbed her father in the back, alluding to Arun Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi’s estranged cousin who left the party to join VP Singh’s Jan Morcha in the 1980s
May 2004: Takes charge of Lok Sabha election campaign of her mother and brother, Rahul Gandhi, in Rae Bareli and Amethi
Mar 2008: Meets one of her father’s assassins, Nalini Sriharan, in Vellore central jail, says she has no objections to the release of her father’s killers
Apr 2009: ‘Do I look old to you?’ Priyanka Gandhi retorts in response to the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s comment about Congress being an old party
Feb 2012: Her name figures on the Congress’s list of 40-star campaigners for assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh; holds weekly public ‘darbars’ in Delhi for people of
Rae Bareli and Amethi Mar-Apr 2014: Exchanges barbs with Modi during the Lok Sabha elections. Modi invokes his “backward class” status in response to Priyanka Gandhi ’s “low-level politics” remarks aimed at him
Feb 2017: Plays key role in Congress’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections Jan 2019: Congress appoints her as general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh (East)