Decision not to contest is personal, says Priyanka
new delhi — Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the daughter of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, on trashed a newspaper report which suggested that there was a proposal for her to contest against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections. She also told NDTV television news channel that her family, including elder brother Rahul Gandhi, the vice-president of the party, would whole-heartedly support her if she ever decided to fight an election.
“No one in my family would ever stop me from contesting an election. My brother, mother and husband would wholeheartedly support me if I wanted to contest,” NDTV quoted her as saying.
“My brother has expressed to me many times that he thinks I should contest,” she said. Priyanka said that she would, for the present, continue to focus on managing the election campaigns of her brother Rahul Gandhi in Amethi and her mother Sonia in Rae Bareli, both in Uttar Pradesh.
“My decision to not contest is personal. I will only change it when I feel from within I should,” she said. Priyanka’s comments addressed the oft-expressed view that she could overshadow her brother, who is leading the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, if she played a larger role in politics.
The Times of India said in a frontpage lead story today that Priyanka was learnt to have been keen on being the party’s candidate against Modi, and that the party leadership finally decided against it.
Priyanka has limited her political role to managing Rahul Gandhi’s and Sonia Gandhi’s campaigns in their constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli, respectively, in Uttar Pradesh.
According to the newspaper, she is believed to have made a strong pitch to contest because she felt Modi was “bad for the country” and needed to be “stopped”.
A section of Congress leaders felt that her candidature would have sent out a strong message to the party’s workers and the electorate at large at a time when it is seen as being up against a strong antiincumbency factor and is fighting with its back to the wall against the BJP, which has been energised by Modi’s leadership.
Periodically, various Congress leaders make statements urging Priyanka to enlarge her political role and contest elections.
The report said the party’s decision not to field Priyanka was based on the logic of preferring a local leader to take on Modi, who is the chief minister of Gujarat and, therefore, an “outsider” in the constituency. There was also the fear that it would have exposed her to attacks from Modi and the BJP on account of her husband Robert Vadra’s alleged land deals.
The Congress has named a local leader, Ajay Rai, as its candidate to take on Modi in Varanasi, from where Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is also contesting. Modi is also contesting from a second seat, Vadodara, in Gujarat.
The report said there was also a fear that her candidature would have diverted attention from Gandhi and his campaign and raised questions whether her entry was an implicit acknowledgement of “her brother’s lacklustre leadership”. Priyanka, 41, is seen by many as being more charismatic than her 43-year-old brother and as someone who is able to establish a quick rapport with people. Many people also say that she is a more natural politician, as compared to Gandhi, who is seen as a reluctant entrant into the hurly-burly of politics. For large numbers of people, Priyanka reminds them of her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who is still admired by large sections of the masses in India.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said the The Times of
India report showed that the Gandhis were under siege.
“The situation is akin to what happened to Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi in the run up to the 1977 general elections. Economic populism did not work. The family charisma has faded away. But a party which is merely a crowd around a family probably felt that the current leader in the family has not clicked,” he wrote in his blog.