Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has long been the great white hope of the Congress rank-and-file. In declaring her as prime minister material, Saharanpur MP Imran Masood was expressing the party workers’ belief that she alone can take on the BJP. That conviction has become sharper after the party’s electoral reverses in 2024 and 2025 and her sterling performance in the winter session of parliament.
But the Congress may have missed the bus by waiting too long to bring her front and centre.
For the ruling NDA, she is certainly a more formidable prospect than her sibling and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi. Priyanka’s strength lies in her charisma, manifest courage, and unshakeable poise, and an almost uncanny resemblance to her grandmother, Indira Gandhi. The resemblance is not so much a matter of facial features, her admirers say, as the projection of grace, dignity, and strength in equal measure.
Her sibling has been a soft target for the BJP ever since he cocked a snook at PM Manmohan Singh in 2013 by publicly dubbing as “complete nonsense” his government’s ordinance on convicted lawmakers. This manifest lack of maturity delighted the BJP. “Pappu” became the centrepiece of BJP-sponsored social media campaigns. Gandhi hasn’t entirely shaken off the disrespectful sobriquet, despite successful public mobilisations around his “yatras”. Every time he fumbles, the jibe resurfaces.
Attacking Priyanka in a similar fashion would be counter-productive, and the BJP knows it. In public perception, she has fulfilled her roles of daughter, sister, wife, and mother in an exemplary manner, rumours of a brief phase of marital discord notwithstanding. She simply cannot be targeted directly, and certainly not personally. A far more nuanced strategy would be needed, particularly at a time when the women’s vote decides electoral outcomes.
So, the BJP spun Masood’s statement into a signifier of no-confidence in the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. The spin-doctoring had the intended impact, with Masood being forced to claim that his statement had been taken out of context and hailing Gandhi as the party supremo. Earlier, former Odisha MLA Mohammed Moquim was sacked for having questioned the party’s leadership choices. In a letter to former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he had said that the nation, and particularly its youth, “are waiting for Smt Priyanka Gandhi-ji to take a central, visible, and active leadership role.” The Congress leadership did not take kindly to the implicit criticism of Gandhi in Moquim’s missive.
Robert Vadra, not being an office-bearer of the Congress, naturally has no fear of expressing his views. He acknowledged the widespread “demand” for Priyanka and said it was only a matter of time before she asserted her presence on the political stage and changed the country. He also said that there was a demand that he, Vadra, join politics. And that brings us to Priyanka’s Achilles heel.
Vadra featured prominently in the BJP’s 2014 lok sabha campaign, thanks partly to an expose by Arvind Kejriwal, then an anti-corruption activist, and partly to Ashok Khemka, the IAS officer who uncovered irregularities in Vadra’s business deal. The BJP coined the phrase “the Vadra model of doing business” to accuse the Congress of crony capitalism. Ever since, Vadra has been a convenient club with which to clobber the Gandhis.
Over time, Vadra’s alleged links with CC Thampi, the liquor and real estate tycoon, and arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari were leaked to the media. Vadra was repeatedly summoned by the ED, and Priyanka once made it a point to accompany him to the office. Neither of the Gandhi siblings was involved in Vadra’s businesses. Priyanka did buy and sell land in Haryana at a profit, but in a legally unexceptionable manner. The point is that the Vadras’ legal troubles surface from time to time, which keeps them in the public mind. However, the lack of any concrete outcomes has diminished their political impact.
The 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections proved a major setback for Priyanka. She was given charge of the state and ran an aggressive campaign. Consciously targeting women voters, she attracted large crowds but failed to make an electoral impact. Riding on welfare-ism and Yogi Adityanath’s popularity, the BJP swept the state. In fact, the Congress vote share in UP fell from 6.25 per cent to an abysmal 2.33 per cent, and its tally from seven seats to two.
Since then, she has campaigned in Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar, and Delhi, but her star power has consistently failed to translate into votes. This has led to the view that her charisma has been overhyped, and she will not be able to do any better than her brother. Times have certainly changed. Voters no longer privilege an appealing personality over bullish political messaging. The Congress has failed to capture the public imagination, as Modi’s ‘Viksit Bharat’ has done. Besides, the party organisation has crumbled.
Priyanka, with her famously no-nonsense approach, could potentially reverse the deinstitutionalisation of the Congress by effecting party reforms, restoring the tradition of democratic decision-making, and mobilising grassroots workers. But she will need a free hand and good advisors to do so. She will also have to be ideologically flexible in order to steer the party from hard left to centre.
Despite the pressure from below, party insiders say that the close bond between the siblings rules out the possibility of Priyanka taking centre stage, unless urged to do so by Gandhi himself. She will only take the baton if he chooses to pass it on.
Bhavdeep Kang is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author.