Priyanka Gandhi no-show in family fort sets tongues wagging

LUCKNOW/DELHI: Pitched as the architect of the pre-poll alliance between Congress and SP in Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi has limited her campaign to the family pocket borough of Rae Bareli with just a solitary appearance there.

Rae Bareli goes to polls on Thursday but saw Priyanka campaign once this poll season, a far cry from the past when she was the Gandhi poll manager. Though Amethi votes on February 27, so far there is no sign she will campaign there.

Crucially, her engagement on the Gandhi family turf has come down sharply since 2012, contrary to expectations it would shoot up this time and some initial proposals that she campaign widely in UP.

Priyanka's virtual no-show has magnified the Gandhis' absence here. It is also for the first time that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has not made it to her parliamentary constituency for campaigning.

Aware of speculation over her non-appearance, Congress released an appeal from Sonia in Rae Bareli and Amethi. Sonia said she cannot campaign "for some reasons" while urging voters to treat her appeal as a personal letter. Saying that her family was proud to represent them, Sonia has sought a vote to strengthen her hand while desisting from naming Congress or SP.

Priyanka's limited appearance has led rival BJP to claim that the SP-Congress alliance did not want to expose the Gandhis out of the fear of impending poor results.

But V K Shukla, district Congress chief, said, "There were pressing personal engagements she had to attend to in Delhi. That is what kept her away."

A star campaigner in family seats, this is the first time Priyanka's campaign has been limited to this extent. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Priyanka not only set up a Congress war room in Rae Bareli's Buvemau guest house from where she monitored the campaign and sought to nip local defections, but also led more than 10 high-voltage rallies in Amethi and Rae Bareli, responding to former HRD minister Smriti Irani's every barb. In 2012 too, she had camped in Rae Bareli for days, meeting women members of the Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana, and appealing to them to vote for Congress.

Locals are mildly disappointed. In Rae Bareli, Suresh Tiwari, a local tea vendor said, " Priyanka ji hi Modi ji ko karara jawab deti hain, (Only Priyanka gives a strong response to Modi)." Neighbouring Amethi is still hopeful that Priyanka will come to campaign when Rahul visits on Thursday. This, even though the local Congress office has confirmed that she is busy attending to her son who is unwell.