Priyanka Gandhi captivates popular mood in the road show in UP

By Gaurav Sethi. Dated: 2/21/2019 10:43:21 PM

Has Priyanka Gandhi captivated the popular imagination for the Congress in U.P. on arrival in Lucknow on Monday, February 11; it was quite an electrifying 15 km road show in Hazrat Ganj and other streets of the historic city? Her confidence and self-assurance was a clear signal that she is ready to fight political battles bravely and she can pay back all the barbs thrown at her in full measure.
Mr. Narendra Modi has been and continues to harp on the Nehru-Gandhi family members hogging the limelight and pushing the rest of the party people into the background. Is this old hat which does not hold water, especially after the Hindi heartland States gave a befitting reply in the recent Assembly election results in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi, says that such arguments carry no weight, nor do they appeal to the voters. They give their verdict through the ballot box or the electronic voting machines.
Do the voter responses pin down Modi's flash in the pan attacks, which appear to be hackneyed to many people in the country, be it the south of Vindhyas or in the northern parts of India. Mr. Modi's teams have to come up with a new list of accusations. Are they running short of issues at stake? The dynastic rule criticism has gone on for too long? Is it losing its shine or has it fallen flat? The rural or urban audiences do not appear to be impressed. They have heard it all too long?
They would like to hear something new about delivering on promises made five years ago and the pledge to change the face of India. Has India acquired a new look or is it only in parts of New Delhi? The grass on the Republic Day grounds may have never looked greener than it did this year, but behind the bright faces of the children, a majority of Gandhi tableaux and superb marching, was there something more the people were looking for on their TV screens and among those gathered on the Rajpath?
Mr. Modi has undertaken a tour of 10 States in five days in the third week of February as part of his feverish electioneering and how does he reach out to the people when he promises and claims that the quality of people's life has been uplifted during the Modi Raj of five years? Can the Congress match his rhetoric or the effort to deliver on many of his promises to the people to end the sorry state of affairs in the country?
That is where the rub lies. That is what Rahul Gandhi is saying during the Priyanka Gandhi four road shows through Lucknow and other parts of U.P. That is what Priyanka Gandhi is endorsing when the party faithful insist that Priyanka Gandhi brings a breath of fresh air and new hope to the people to take them out of the mess that the nation is facing and living with.
The present focus is on the Lok Sabha elections, though the ultimate aim is to capture power in Uttar Pradesh, the real object is to capture the largest State of India, according to the party president of the Congress, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, who joined her in the road show at a time when the Prime Minister was in Varanasi, his own constituency.
She has taken over as general secretary of the AICC in the eastern region of U.P. Will she use her new position with all the potential that she has and will she cash in on the traditional popularity of the grand old party, though ins 2014, it won just two Lok Sabha seats in constituencies won by her mother, Sonia Gandhi, and her brother, Rahul Gandhi, five years ago, besides a few seats in the U.P. Assembly?
Her striking resemblance to her grandmother, Indira Gandhi, is not going unnoticed. She is eloquent, yet youthful. She is just 47, as was Indira Gandhi when she took office as Information and Broadcasting Minister in 1964 in Lal Bahadur Shastri's Cabinet, only to become Prime Minister in early 1966 with the sudden demise of her Prime Minister.
Priyanka Gandhi has made a good start by winning over 100,000 people with her first tweets in this age of social media and she remains savvy in Hindi and English. She is trying to translate these efforts into a large number of votes and not just responses in the social media. She plans now to travel tirelessly without Rahul Gandhi accompanying her to many places, including Poorvanchal, where poverty, drought and hunger are grave issues. The BJP and other governments at the Centre and the State have neglected these sad lands where poverty and hunger take a heavy toll.
Even if Yogi Adityanath has taken some initiatives, including the fervent Kumbh Mela in his State, that fervour will be over in a few weeks as summer sets in March. Is Mr. Modi's use of social media revealing diminishing returns and causing him anxiety? Where are the initial flushes of oratory and gimmicks of the year 2014? Is he trying hard to bring back those flashes, with little or zero success?
For Priyanka fierce campaigning and election rallies lie ahead, no matter how much the effort required. Will Mr. Narendra Modi, who is not far from 70 years old now, with hair and beard turning grey, be able to match the energy of his rivals as he strives to find a new idiom, but it fails to come his way?
It is a Herculean job Priyanka Gandhi has been given? She has to build the party in eastern U.P. from a scratch, as the party cadre has been neglected and much will have to be done to galvanize them from the near sleep mode to fully awake, alert and agile to hear and push the agenda for this year's Lok Sabha elections in April and May. It is a tall order. But she is not a novice to political games. She has handled electioneering in Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies before and delivered them to her mother and brother for the Congress. Her capability to repeat the feat cannot be questioned as she is a fighter to the core.
There is no doubt that the volatile Mrs. Smriti Irani, the Textiles Minister, will be lurking around to make loud noises accompanied by some people from Delhi and several States up and down the country, even as its influence has been diminishing in the course of the past six months. Yet road shows with mounted trucks are the name of the game at this early point of electioneering in U.P. and soon elsewhere in the country. Jyotirditya Scindia, who oversees western U.P., joined Priyanka in the mounted and decorated truck for the Lucknow road show on Februrary 11.
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