UP Polls: Priyanka has appeal and crowd-pulling ability, but will that be enough?

Every leader takes advantage of a crucial moment to settle down. The current UP Assembly elections will be a decisive moment for the political future of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Once considered a trump card, she now faces a massive challenge in the present elections. The party has not been in power in UP since 1989, and the organisation is almost extinct. So it will be a Himalayan task for the 49-year-old Priyanka Gandhi, who formally entered the rough and tumble of politics in January 2019.

The party has not announced her as the chief ministerial candidate. But if Congress wins by a miracle, who else but Priyanka? She admitted last week that she is the face of the Congress, asking a reporter whether any other face is visible. The party believed her entry could be a game-changer. Congress President Sonia Gandhi often said Priyanka, a mother of two children, would take the political plunge when she was ready. In 2019 January, she became the General Secretary in charge of Eastern UP.

A leader should have three qualities. The first is charisma; the second is crowd-pulling, and the third is converting the masses into votes. Priyanka has appeal and crowd-pulling ability. It is only the third, converting the crowds into votes she is yet to achieve.

However, she is no greenhorn in politics. For close to two decades, she played politics with backroom decisions. Her role was confined to Uttar Pradesh. Priyanka’s involvement in UP goes back to her father, Rajiv Gandhi; she was helping him in his campaign trail in Amethi and her mother’s constituency Rae Bareily. She also took care of her brother Rahul Gandhi’s constituency Amethi though he lost it in the 2019 polls.

There are many pluses and minuses for Priyanka’s political career. A Gandhi family member is an added advantage. She has taken charge of the party when the congress support base is lowest in UP and the country. The party had favoured her better than her brother Rahul Gandhi and appreciated her people skills, language proficiency, and repartees.

With no base, the party has been floundering since 1989. The upper castes have moved to the BJP, the backward classes to SP, and the Dalits to BSP. Minority voters are split among SP, BSP, and Congress. Before Priyanka, the biggest challenge is to recover the party’s social base or create a new one. The party had a barely 7% vote share in 2017.

Above all, the BJP has the upper hand with a divided opposition. The party’s alliance experiments with the BSP in 1996 and the Samajwadi Party in the 2017 Assembly elections failed miserably. Congress has adopted the ‘ekla chalo’ strategy in the 2022 UP assembly elections and thus isolated while other parties like TMC and NCP  have aligned with the SP. Any anti-incumbency against the BJP seems to be going to the SP-RLD combine.

While the other parties depend on caste and religious cards, Priyanka has chosen the gender card and brought out a  special women manifesto. It lists many benefits to uplift women’s self-esteem and self-reliance, job benefits, educational perks, and more opportunities to enter politics. “Ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon” (I am a girl, and I can fight) is her poll slogan.

Priyanka has made some politically correct moves to improve the Congress profile, like consoling the family of the Hathras rape victim, arranging transport for the migrants from Uttar Pradesh, etc. Yet, Congress remains out of reckoning due to lack of organization, absence of second-rung leaders, factionalism and indiscipline.

Her minuses are also many. Some complain she is inaccessible and arrogant. She has not been able to strengthen the party in the past two years. It is indeed a gamble that the party has decided against alliances. Priyanka’s revamp of the party organization has upset many seniors and old-timers who feel side-lined. Under her watch, senior leaders like RPN Singh and Jitin Prasada and four declared candidates left recently. Many think that she should have checked the erosion when the party is weak. Booth committees are crucial and she must concentrate on setting them up.

It is also interesting to note that Priyanka is expanding her role beyond Uttar Pradesh, going to Punjab and Goa and perhaps a national profile. The mess in Punjab resulted in the exit of chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and the appointment of Navjot Singh Sidhu as the new PCC chief due to her influence.
UP polls will decide whether Priyanka’s chemistry or the poll arithmetic that works. Her success would depend on her appeal to women and youth. It is nobody’s case that Priyanka could bring back the Congress rule in the state, but even if she could ensure an improvement for the party, it will go a long way.