All Congress hands on deck

You may like her or hate her but you can hardly ignore her now that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is into active politics. Congress loyalists see this as the biggest morale booster ahead of the general elections that are now only months away. The BJP is inclined to point to her entry as her brother Rahul Gandhi’s failure to manage the Congress campaign on his own and has to fall back upon family to rescue him.

Politics has a lot to with optics and the protagonists of the idea of Priyanka’s belated entry are betting on her upping the party image at a time when all hands are needed on deck to oust the ruling party. There is no denying any Gandhi family scion has knowledge and experience of politics, which means she is no tyro taking her fledgling footing in the game and Gandhi loyalists, known to fawn on the family, would be the ones most pleased.

Priyanka did play a major role in Congress’ strong performance in UP in 2009 and so her entry cannot be expected not to have some effect on the voting in Uttar Pradesh where there will be a three-way contest among SP-BSP, BJP and the Congress.

As with all things in Indian politics, there are two divergent opinions on Priyanka’s entry as we can make out from the comments of the twitterati.