Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has lived up to her reputation for unpredictability. She chose to join the Congress just before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and take charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, a region where the party has very little traction. Then, she accompanied her husband, controversial businessman Robert Vadra, to the Enforcement Directorate for questioning, signalling that she is in gladitorial mode.
For the BJP, the message is that she will play on the front foot. She has long been regarded as the Congress ace-in-the-hole and Vadra as her Achilles’ Heel. By publicly supporting him, rather than maintaining a distance, she has made it clear that she is spoiling for a fight and inviting the BJP to do its worst.
Priyanka’s combative instincts were manifest even 20 years ago, when she first appeared on the campaign trail. Rae Bareilly is unlikely to forget the 27-year-old sari-clad firebrand, demanding that voters rout Arun Nehru – who was contesting on a BJP ticket – from the constituency.
Her palpable grief and anger against her ‘uncle’, who had ‘betrayed’ her late father, swayed the crowd. Ever since then, the Congress rank-and-file has been impatiently awaiting her entry into politics. Such is her charisma and political instincts, that her brother and party president Rahul Gandhi tends to pale in comparison.
As the Congress fortunes declined, beginning with the 2013 assembly elections, the clamour for Priyanka increased. Vadra, however, was one of the BJP’s election planks, which could well have made things awkward. The party had even brought out a six-page booklet titled ‘Damad Shree: The Vadra ‘get-rich-quick’ model’ and posed 13 embarrassing questions to the Gandhi family, with regard to his land deals in Haryana.
By 2016, the BJP was in power both at the centre and in Rajasthan and Haryana. Vadra began to feel the heat. His land deals in Bikaner were already under investigation and regulatory agencies conducted multiple raids on his aides and offices. Meanwhile, the media carried a series of stories alleging links between him, a London-based arms dealer and a highly controversial Dubai-based businessman.
Indeed, there has been considerable speculation that the ED investigation against Vadra may have induced the Priyanka to join the electoral campaign. While this may or may not have been the clinching factor, it will certainly lay regulatory agencies open to the charge of being party to a political vendetta. As if to rub it in, senior Congress leaders have publicly warned officials of retribution if and when the government changes!
Priyanka is currently not involved in Vadra’s business. She had become director of Blue Breeze Trading, one of Vadra’s many companies, but resigned in 2008 and was replaced by Sreenivasan Krishnan, who was promoted to the high-profile post of Congress general secretary in 2017.
Priyanka had stated in 2016, when Vadra’s company received an ED notice, that her finances were not connected with her husband. It may be recalled that Vadra became controversial thanks to his land deals in Haryana, which came to light in 2012, when Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan blew the whistle at a press conference.
Priyanka and Rahul, too, had acquired land in the state. When the question of her land purchases in Amipur village near Faridabad (where Vadra also had land) was raised, she clarified that the funds were her own. The land was eventually re-sold (at five times the price) to the original owner, a business associate of Vadra who is under the ED scanner. Later, her brother gifted her land that he had purchased in Haryana’s Hasanpur village, where Vadra, too, had bought land.
While the Gandhi siblings’ land deals in Haryana were ‘clean’, Vadra’s were called into question. He ended up receiving an Income Tax bill of Rs 25 crore last year! More serious was the ED probe into his land transactions in Rajasthan.m Unflappable, no-nonsense and said to have her heart in the right place, Priyanka commands the adulation of the party. It is widely known that she played a key role in planning election campaigns and selecting candidates.
She maintained an office and staff at her brother’s home on Tughlaq Lane. She believes in being well-informed and seeks independent feedback on the performance of the party and its leaders in various states. Her induction raises several questions, from whether Vadra will follow her into politics, to the distribution of power between the siblings. The only certainty is that she will prove the party’s most effective campaigner and popular face.
For the moment, it appears as if the Congress’ corruption plank has been negated, owing partly to the Vadra imbroglio. In addition, the extradition of businessmen Deepak Talwar and Rajiv Saxena, both of whom were closely linked to Opposition politicians, holds out the threat of old skeletons climbing out of the closet and bringing UPA-era scams into focus once again.
Bhavdeep Kang is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author.