By Sushil Kutty
Priyanka Gandhi will not contest from Varanasi. Some media-persons like in the Republic are sighing in relief at the ‘close shave’ for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Others like in the Times of Here Now are disappointed; for them a juicy opportunity to pile on TRP has been lost; they are regretting the “fact” that it will be not be a “fun contest”, meaning it will not be that much more money in the kitty.
The decision was that of Rahul Gandhi whether to field Priyanka Gandhi from Varanasi or not. Talk about Priyanka pitting her ‘Indira is Durga’ charisma against ‘Modi Hei toh Mumkin Hai’ macho image have been swirling in the hot and dusty plains of Uttar Pradesh for weeks, hyped up further by television studio warriors representing both points of view: Priyanka will give Modi a fight that he will remember and the other, Modi will eat Priyanka for breakfast and then go on to feast on a sumptuous lunch.
What was real was that the Congress base in Varanasi got uncommonly enthused at the prospect of a Priyanka Gandhi face-off with Modi and it worried the BJP not a little. The BJP’s plans for Modi’s mega road-show and the publicity blitz surrounding his nomination exercise surely got affected by talk of Priyanka Gandhi contesting from Varanasi. Media sent their top “stars” to cover Varanasi days in advance and Modi did his Akshay Kumar interview in time for his Varanasi nomination.
But, now it will be the same old Ajai Rai who lost to Modi in 2014, a “dabang neta” with a following of his own in Kashi but who,try as the Congress will, won’t be able to make a dent in the Modi vote-bank. The feeling across the constituency was that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would have given them an option to choose somebody else other than Modi. On the question of whether Modi was a good MP, the jury it still out. There are those who say the Ganga is definitely cleaner, there are those who are tasteless sour at the thought.
The Congress, meaning Rahul Gandhi, cut it too close when taking the final decision; when the hype over Modi’s nomination a second time is at an all-time high, when the media are there in extraordinary strength, and the Congress base was thinking “it’ll be Priyanka for sure, nobody else”. Now, after the clarification, it’s like a deflated balloon and media are talking of “Congress surrender” and that this could have a “ripple effect” in constituencies across eastern Uttar Pradesh, which is where Priyanka Gandhi is Congress general-secretary.
Priyanka Gandhi was sent to eastern Uttar Pradesh to help the Congress to lay the ground for a good showing in Yogi-land and pose to the BJP a credible challenge in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections; she was not made Congress general-secretary to defeat Modi in Varanasi. Rahul Gandhi should have scotched all such talk in the bud, not leave it to the last minute, give the voluble Modi all the more fodder to brag about his ‘invincibility’.
Now with Priyanka Gandhi not at all the ‘X-factor’ in Varanasi, she’s also not the X-factor in eastern Uttar Pradesh and if she goes to campaign for Ajay Rai, she will be dogged by questions on why she “surrendered” and why the Congress “chickened out” at the last minute. The “replacement candidate this time’ Ajay Rai was “original” candidate in 2014, a ‘local”, and had then lost by 3 lakh plus votes. Nothing much is expected from him this time. The SP-BSP gathbandhan candidate is also a minnow, a man who had lost a Mayor’s election.
Besides, the whole gathbandhan politics vis a vis the Congress had left the Congress in a very weak position in Varanasi. The gathbandhan had given only Amethi and Rai Bareilly to the Congress, not Varanasi. If anything, the gathbandhan would like to beard Modi in his den, why give that credit and distinction to the Congress and the Gandhi family? Obviously, talk and boasts like “will do anything to stop Modi-Shah duo” is nothing but election rhetoric. (IPA Service)