Priyanka Gandhi has so far proved to be a catastrophe for Congress

Priyanka, the younger sister of Rahul Gandhi, was always the preferred choice of the party rank and file. She was considered to be smarter than her brother, more politically savvy, a better communicator, and having  greater mass appeal. The facts that she resembles her grandmother, Indira Gandhi, is a relaxed campaigner and speaks fluent Hindi were seen as a bonus.

So when the Congress posted a disastrous result from Uttar Pradesh in 2019, even losing the family bastion Amethi where Rahul Gandhi was roundly defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP's) Smriti Irani, the party was unwilling to blame Priyanka for letting the side down.

After all, she had been given charge of Uttar Pradesh barely three months before a general election, it was said. Moreover, making any headway in this Hindi heartland state was always an uphill task. The Congress has been out of power in Uttar Pradesh since 1989. The party’s support base, comprising minorities, scheduled castes and Brahmins, has virtually disappeared, having shifted allegiance to the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the BJP, respectively. The party organisation in the state has weakened beyond recognition, and its workers have left in droves for greener pastures.

Also read: Priyanka Gandhi’s Uttar Pradesh campaign — too late already?

But nearly three years after she joined the hurly-burly of politics, the party is running out of excuses for Priyanka’s lacklustre performance. The manner in which she dealt with the recent Punjab imbroglio exposed her political immaturity and raised serious doubts that Priyanka has the skill sets to put the Congress house in order. She has taken on the role of the party’s crisis manager and firefighter following the death of Ahmed Patel, Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s indispensable political secretary. Clearly, she is out of depth here.

It is an acknowledged fact that Priyanka was instrumental in pitching for Navjot Singh Sidhu’s appointment as Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president and isolating senior leader and former chief minister Amarinder Singh. Sidhu’s strident attacks against Singh were not just overlooked by the party’s Central leadership, but were actively encouraged.

Amarinder Singh’s resignation, his decision to quit the party and Sidhu’s dramatic announcement that he was stepping down as Punjab Congress chief have only highlighted how Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi bungled it for the Congress barely a few months before assembly polls. Till a few weeks ago, it appeared that the Congress had a clear edge over its political rivals in Punjab but not anymore.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra inexperienced; will field candidate against Sidhu in Assembly polls, says Amarinder Singh

As for Priyanka’s involvement in Uttar Pradesh, she has undoubtedly made the politically right moves to improve the Congress profile, like visiting the family of the Hathras rape victim, undertaking a motorcade ride through Lucknow, arranging transport for the migrants from Uttar Pradesh during the first lockdown and overhauling the party’s state unit. Yet, Priyanka has failed to make an impact. The Congress remains out of reckoning and continues to be counted as a fringe player in the electorally-crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.

It must be remembered that though Priyanka has been attracting large crowds during her campaigns in her mother Sonia Gandhi and brother Rahul Gandhi’s constituencies Rae Bareli and Amethi, she never succeeded in ensuring a Congress victory in the assembly seats here.

There are several factors at play here.

Like Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka too is inconsistent and is lacking in staying power. An occasional trip, dharna or a roadshow may attract crowds but are unlikely to fetch votes. She has to engage regularly with party workers and the aam janta in order to register the party’s presence in a state where there is a new generation of voters which is unaware of Congress' history and the party’s past predominance in Uttar Pradesh politics.

There is talk that Priyanka has told party workers that she will be shifting to Lucknow and will be based here till after next year’s assembly polls. She will stay at their grand aunt Sheila Kaul’s house, which is now ready for her to move in. But this could well prove to be a proverbial case of too little, too late.

While Priyanka’s revamp of the party organisation has upset many seniors and old timers, her complete dependence on her personal secretary Sandeep Singh has also angered the rank and file. There have been innumerable complaints about Singh’s brusque manner and how he controls access to Priyanka, making it virtually impossible for ordinary people to meet her. The fact that he is a former Jawaharlal Nehru University student and has been encouraging the induction of Left-leaning workers into the party has also not gone down well with the cadre in Uttar Pradesh.

The biggest challenge before Priyanka in Uttar Pradesh is to recover the party’s social base or create a new one. This is obviously not an easy task for her as veterans like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Digvijaya Singh failed to revive the party here in the past. With identity politics taking firm root in the state, the Congress has lost out to the Mandal parties. Unlike the BJP which was quick to respond by resorting to social engineering, the grand old party failed to keep pace with the changing political landscape, rendering it irrelevant in Uttar Pradesh. The late Congress leader Jaipal Reddy once remarked that winning or losing an election is part of the game, but it becomes difficult for a party to recover if it loses its social base. This perhaps sums up the Congress story in the Hindi heartland.

As it becomes increasingly clear that Priyanka is unlikely to succeed in Uttar Pradesh, many senior party leaders believe it was a mistake to give her this charge and make her accountable for a state. It would have served the party better if she had been deployed as a key campaigner across the country, it is argued. This would have ensured that her mystique remained intact.

For now, Priyanka, once dubbed as a game changer for the Congress, will be struggling to prove she is not a failure.