Aditya Sinha: Will the real Indira please stand up?

For all the talk about PM Modi being the new Indira Gandhi, we'll see who's the real deal once her granddaughter Priyanka steps up

Priyanka Gandhi and Narendra Modi

There is talk, after the BJP's triumph in the UP Assembly election, of how Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the new Indira Gandhi. This is, of course, nonsense. Indira broke Pakistan into two pieces and all that Modi has broken in two is the Samajwadi Party. The similarity visible on the horizon is the moulding of regime into something sinister: Indira Gandhi put India under Emergency rule and Modi says, despite a Supreme Court order, that you are going to need Aadhaar if you want to pay taxes or drive a car. Anybody with an iota of net-savvy will tell you that Aadhaar is surveillance-creep. So I'll grant this: in their anti-libertarian proclivities, Indira and Modi are indeed similar.

Yet, there is someone else who people say resembles Indira Gandhi. Those in the know - and also those that do a lot of wishful thinking, an activity that characterises the Congress party after the humiliating drubbing it received in UP - say that this person looks like Indira, even in the way that she wears her sari, that she has Indira's forceful manner of speech, that she has Indira's silent cunning and ruthlessness.This person is her granddaughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Therefore, when people talk about no opposition to Modi - even former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted of how no pan-India leader seemed to exist, and that the opposition should now focus not on 2019 but on 2024 - they appear to be overlooking the obvious battle. Modi vs Priyanka, or in other words, Indira vs Indira.

You may wonder why Priyanka didn't join the UP battle in earnest, if she's the one destined to bring about Modi's Waterloo. For one thing, the labour of division in the family for the UP contest was that her brother, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, would be the public face of the party's campaign while she managed the back office. Unfortunately, she was faced with a personal crisis in February. Her 16-year-old son Raihan, a student at Doon School, was badly hit in the eye by a cricket ball. His parents flew him down to Hyderabad for treatment at the LV Prasad Eye Hospital, but it turns out that his retina was detached by the injury; he has likely lost the vision in that eye.

It appeared that the stars were badly aligned for Priyanka. Besides the UP decimation, her mother (Congress chief) Sonia Gandhi's health deteriorated. Sonia was earlier treated for cancer and it had gone into remission. It has lately reappeared. (Rahul escorted her back from a medical visit abroad just after the UP results were announced.) In any case, the Congress only won seven seats in the UP Assembly, less than the seats won by BJP ally Apna Dal, and less than even the number of BJP aspirants for the chief ministership that ultimately went to Gorakhpur's sitting MP, Yogi Adityanath. The rout was roundly blamed on Rahul's flaccid leadership; even staunch family loyalists like Digvijay Singh were quoted saying they would welcome Priyanka's full-time entry into politics. Obviously no Congress politician can say "Please, Rahul, go!"; but when they say "Please, Priyanka, come!" it essentially means the same thing.

What is likely to happen is that before the end of this year, Rahul and Priyanka will switch roles: she will become the public face of the party and he will take charge of the back office. Perhaps that will suit him, given his attempts during the UPA years at recruitment drives and fixing the organisation (though it's obvious he found the rot in the party machine was far too deep to be fixed). True, much will remain unchanged, such as the first family's fetish for secrecy, privacy and mystique - the Congress doesn't seem to even have proper internal communication, forget about transparency. Yet, it is also true that the Congress party is nothing without the dynasty.

For the sake of a viable Opposition, the sooner Priyanka steps up, the better. It is nonsense to keep her mothballed till the 2019 parliamentary election. As the UP election demonstrated, the entire opposition must unite as one if it wants to give serious battle to the BJP. For instance, it is now clear that the BJP's next big target is West Bengal and Mamata Banerjee. With CPM leader Sitaram Yechury fading into the background, it will be up to Priyanka to ensure that a Mahagathbandhan - missing in UP, successful in Bihar - is in place.

Either she's upto the job or she isn't. There are those who worry that Modi and his cronies will go after her husband Robert Vadra. Let them. It will only help her politically. Hopefully she will counter every Modi punch that's thrown. Then we'll know which is the Indira-avatar and which the pseudo-Indira.

Aditya Sinha's crime novel, The CEO Who Lost His Head, is available now. He tweets @autumnshade. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

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