Rahul (5 page)

Sonia won from both Amethi and Bellary and chose to retain the Amethi seat. Rahul and Priyanka attended her oath-taking ceremony in the Lok Sabha. The difference between their personalities was visible even when they arrived at Parliament. Rahul got out of his car and went straight in. Priyanka paused and smiled for the cameras.

Although Sonia had won the election from two constituencies, the Congress did not return to power. Instead, the elections which ended in early October 1999 saw the Congress face an embarrassing defeat. The results were decisively in favour of the BJP-led NDA. After three general elections in four years, the country finally had a coalition government that had a majority and would last a full five-year term. The Congress, under Sonia Gandhi, had to settle for the opposition benches in Parliament. The rebellion within the Congress early that year on the issue of Sonia’s foreign origins had not helped the Party’s performance in the election. During the CWC’s meeting on 15 May that year, Sharad Pawar, P.A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar, Sitaram Kesri’s protégé, had openly rebelled against Sonia and demanded that the issue of her nationality be settled once and for all. Sonia, who had made India her home thirty years ago when she married Rajiv, was shocked, and so were Rahul and Priyanka. Both advised her to resign from the post of Congress president and together drafted her resignation letter. The three rebels, meanwhile, broke away from the Congress to set up the Nationalist Congress Party. Senior Congress leaders and party workers got down to pacifying Sonia and coaxing her to take back her resignation. On one occasion, party supporters surrounded Rahul when he returned home late in the evening and begged him to urge his mother to change her mind. The three—Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka—finally decided to put the past behind them and focus on the elections.

In 1999, people had already started speculating about the fifth generation of the Nehru–Gandhi clan entering politics. Five years later, when the country faced another general election, the question of which one of the two Gandhi siblings would contest was again asked. It was expected, both by the Party and the media, that the dynasty would continue. In a television interview in 1998, Sonia had said, ‘Both my children are extremely interested in politics, but they are not interested at the moment to be active in politics.’ Of Rahul, she said, ‘When my son is not here, and when we talk on the phone, most of the questions are related to what is happening in politics.’ Priyanka, too, she added was very ‘interested in politics’. This wasn’t the first time the family had been asked about the possibility of Rahul and Priyanka entering politics. When he was prime minister, Rajiv had been asked which one of the two would be more suitable for politics and he had replied, ‘It’s difficult to say who is more suitable for politics. I wouldn’t have said I was suited for politics but here I am.’ He also said, ‘Like all brothers and sisters, they have a lot in common and yet there are differences … Priyanka is strong-willed. Rahul is a much more outgoing, sporting type of person, and much more sensitive, perhaps.’

By 2004, Congressmen had a faint inkling that Sonia was keener on Rahul’s donning the mantle. Priyanka, who had married Delhi businessman Robert Vadra on 18 February 1997, was now a mother. ‘Sonia felt politics would take up too much of her time and did not want her family to be neglected. Her traditional Catholic upbringing has taught her to put the family first,’ said a Congressman. ‘The three of them take every important decision after discussing it among themselves. Together, they decided that Priyanka should stay in the background and focus on her family while Rahul carries forward the Nehru–Gandhi legacy.’ So, while across the political circles, the air was thick with speculation about Priyanka’s entry into politics, none of this was reflected in her house: 35, Lodhi Estate. It was the house of a woman who took pride in being a good wife and a loving mother. A woman who, in her own words, often baked cupcakes for her children and helped them with their homework and wanted ‘to lead a normal life’. In later years, she would often be seen at Delhi’s Lodi Gardens, accompanying her children to karate lessons. At those times, she kept her distance from the media, politely telling those who approached her that this was her private life and she would like to keep it that way. Her security guards, though always around, would stay concealed behind the bushes and trees in the garden while the children went about their lessons. But there was another dimension to her life. Priyanka, the homemaker, was also Congress’s most charismatic campaigner. Despite the distinctly domestic mood in her house and the shell she went into when she was involved in activities concerning her children, many within the Party hoped that, this time around, she would cross the thin line that separated the campaigner from the candidate.

A similar hope revolved around Rahul who had moved back to India in 2002 and had dropped everything to campaign for his mother and the Congress. He had started taking active interest in politics and was seen more frequently with his mother at public events. Several newspapers, magazines and television channels carried out polls to weigh how Congress’s fortunes would change if Priyanka and Rahul campaigned or, better still, contested. Every poll threw up similar results. Voters felt Priyanka’s and Rahul’s entry into politics would improve the Congress’s chances. The majority seemed to agree that it was time Priyanka and Rahul entered active politics. And finally, most of them felt that Priyanka—and not Rahul—was the natural inheritor of the Nehru–Gandhi legacy. Opinions hadn’t changed since 1984 when India had first noticed Priyanka Gandhi during her grandmother Indira’s funeral. Twenty years later, a TV-journalist-turned-columnist went to the extent of writing that Priyanka has it and Rahul doesn’t.

The siblings, meanwhile, continued to dodge the question which now followed them everywhere. They encountered it again when they visited Amethi and Rae Bareli in early 2004 to meet with party workers and interact with the people. Again, Priyanka did most of the talking while Rahul remained an observer. She spoke to party workers, office bearers, and the men and women of the two constituencies. He preferred to chat with the children. The cameras followed them both, but Rahul tried to keep a distance between him and the lens. Priyanka, instead, flashed her infectious smile as she went about her work. For many years, the people of Amethi hoped Priyanka would stand for elections. Election after election, the popular slogan in Amethi had been, ‘
Amethi ka danka, bitiya Priyanka
(The clarion call from Amethi is for our daughter Priyanka to contest elections).’

‘Rahul Gandhi left the country during Rajivji’s time and largely remained abroad from 1987 onwards. It was his sister who would visit Amethi and look after the constituency along with the Congress president or in her absence,’ recalled a Congress leader from Amethi. ‘Then in 2003, as we started preparations for the next year’s Lok Sabha elections, instructions came from the top for an office be set up in Rae Bareli. Soon, we started operating from Pandey Kothi [Sonia Gandhi’s current office in her constituency]. It was clearly Priyanka who was to contest from either of the two constituencies,’ he added.

It was going to be a difficult election. The Congress realized that. Opinion polls and newspaper columns were flooded with grim predictions for the Party. The NDA government thought it had done fairly well in the five years that it had been in power and was confident of winning the election on issues of governance and development. The Vajpayee government launched a multi-crore ‘feel good’ campaign which it called ‘India Shining’. It sold the idea of a new India, a nation to be reckoned with, an India with a global presence. The Congress struggled to come up with a counter-plan. To some extent, India was shining, but it was shining for only a select few. To the vast majority of Indians, not even a faint glimmer was visible. The Congress decided to tap this vast majority. The Party’s campaign managers, led by Jairam Ramesh, came up with the slogan, ‘
Congress ka haath, garib ke saath
(The hand of the Congress is with the poor).’ The ‘hand’ here was the symbol of the party. The slogan was reminiscent of Indira’s
garibi hatao
(eradicate poverty) call but, somehow, it didn’t seem to click. Brainstorming sessions, with Rahul actively participating, followed. He and Jairam convinced the Party to replace the word
garib
(poor) with
aam aadmi
(the common man). The country was no longer dealing only with poverty which had been the single biggest challenge in the years after Independence. The economy had opened up and people had dreams of a better life. The slogan, it was felt, should connect with the common man and his aspirations, and at the same time question NDA’s claim that India was shining. At Rahul’s behest, the
aam aadmi
, replaced the Congress’s garib. And now, the Congress had its slogan: ‘
Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath
(The hand of the Congress is with the common man).’ The question that the Congress posed at NDA’s India Shining campaign was simple: ‘
Aam aadmi ko kya mila
? (What did the common man get out of India Shining?)’ The question remained central to Rahul Gandhi’s politics in the years to follow. In 2009, while targeting NDA’s India Shining campaign, he said:

In 2004, they gave you a slogan, ‘India Shining’. And we gave you a slogan ‘government of common man’. ‘India Shining’ was in English and half of the population in India could not understand it … They did not go to the houses of the poor, the farmers, the Dalit and other weaker sections. They just went to the houses of the rich. We made just one promise—that we will work for the ‘
aam aadmi
’, farmers of Punjab,
mazdoor
[labourers], Dalit and it will be their government.

In April 2004,
Outlook
quoted the Party strategist Jairam Ramesh saying that Rahul had taken personal interest in the Congress’s election manifesto. He had wanted it ‘sleekly packaged, reader-friendly, pictorial and full of action plans instead of promises’. Completely involved with the campaigning, he advised Sonia to concentrate on
jan sampark
(mass contact) programmes rather than focus her energy on holding rallies, a norm during election campaigns, where it is not unusual for the crowd to be paid to come to the venue. He also turned his attention to the Congress website and wanted it to reflect the Party’s plans and achievements. By now, many in the Congress had started to feel that even though Rahul did not have the kind of political exposure his younger sister did, he was better informed, extremely well-read and far-sighted. But several others were of the opinion that Priyanka knew the pulse of both the party worker and the voter much better than Rahul. And that she was more charismatic. They felt she had the ability to reach out to people and touch hearts, unlike Rahul who was not as spontaneous. ‘She knows where to stop the convoy and talk to the people,’ said a family associate. ‘She remembers people’s names and their problems. When she sees a familiar face in the crowd, she makes it a point to address that person by name. And what an impression that leaves!’ One of Priyanka’s loyalists also brings out a monthly magazine called the
World of Priyanka
. In fact, there are about half a dozen such cheaply brought out periodicals in Amethi and Rae Bareli with no fixed periodicity, eulogizing the Gandhi family.

The suspense finally ended on 5 April 2004 when Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination papers for the Amethi constituency in Sultanpur. Sonia stood to his right. Priyanka stood behind him, her right arm stretched over his shoulder, holding the nomination papers in place for him. Rahul would contest the election. Priyanka would continue to campaign. With Rahul contesting from Amethi, Sonia shifted her constituency to Rae Bareli, a relatively tougher seat compared to Amethi. The writing was on the wall. Rahul was given a constituency which had been a Congress stronghold for decades; his victory was certain. The launch pad, the Congress knew, had to be firm; there was no way the Party could afford to have him lose his first election. Priyanka managed the campaign for both her mother and her brother. In March 2004, before he filed his nomination papers, Rahul visited Amethi with Priyanka who introduced him to the party workers there, saying, ‘He will look after you now.’

The BJP started getting the jitters. It was easy to target Sonia, what with her shaky Hindi, limited political experience and, most importantly, foreign origin. But with Rahul and Priyanka both appearing on the scene, the battle strategy had to be redrawn. Both had charisma. Both were young and drew crowds wherever they went. And the ‘foreign origin’ tag did not apply to them. The BJP’s India Shining campaign now began to totter. The 1999 slogans that had attacked Sonia’s foreign origins; fresh slogans against dynastic politics; and the almost-forgotten issue of the Bofors gun case—everything in the BJP’s arsenal was pulled out to target the Gandhi troika. The NDA manifesto which was released in early April also promised a law that would bar people of foreign origin from holding ‘important offices of the Indian state’. Armed with these defences, the BJP was almost sure of riding to victory on what Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani described as the ‘feel good factor’.

Political analysts, too, did not see much hope for the Congress in this election. They couldn’t have been more off the mark. A poll conducted by CVoter for Star TV in Uttar Pradesh found that most voters believed that, in the long run, the Congress would benefit from having Rahul in the Party. But these predictions were restricted to the state of Uttar Pradesh. The 2004 election results stumped not just the political pandits, it also caught the Congress by surprise. The mandate was clearly in its favour. The Party was able to cobble together a majority government, the UPA, without much effort. ‘The only one who had the numbers exact was my brother,’ Priyanka told
Outlook
in the run-up to the next election. ‘All the rest of us thought we were not going to do well,’ she said. She also said that her brother was ‘far more astute politically’ than her. ‘His understanding of social and economic issues is way above mine,’ Priyanka said. Having taken the backseat herself, she has been among Rahul’s biggest advocates and has often projected her brother as a forward-thinking politician. In an NDTV interview in 2009, she said: