In Hindustani classical music, there’s a ‘Gharana’ system. It embodies a special practice wherein the Guru passes on his musical knowledge to all students while saving the core teachings for his best disciples. These shishyas aren’t necessarily blood relatives of the guru, because traditions only survive if passed on to the right people.
This isn’t true for the Congress party, though. Siblings Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, the current torchbearers of the Gandhi-Nehru Family, simply won’t allow outsiders to rise up the party’s ranks. The top seats are reserved for Rahul Baba and Priyanka Didi only, and if that formula doesn’t work, there is always the First Son-in-Law waiting in the wings for a political debut. The next generation of Gandhi-Vadra is already in the line of succession; Priyanka’s daughter or son will take on the mantle.
This Gand(h)i baat, however, needs to stop, and the media should tell the truth for the sake of democracy. I am mockingly referencing the title of Shahid Kapoor’s 2013 song Gandi Baat to drive my point home.
Priyanka Gandhi’s parliamentary debut from Wayanad is nothing but dynastic politics. It’s a reaffirmation of the Nehru-Gandhi family’s legacy, influence and control over the political spectrum. Rahul Gandhi’s choice to vacate Wayanad and retain Rae Bareli underscores his strategy to ensure Congress presence in both North and South India and strengthen the party’s national reach. By contesting from Wayanad, Priyanka is not just stepping into a seat; she is stepping into a strategic stronghold. Rahul’s 2019 victory solidified the party’s position in Wayanad despite widespread electoral setbacks for the Congress.
“Tum jaante ho mera baap kaun hai? (Do you even know who my father is?)” clearly seems to be the Gandhi family’s motto.
New Indira Gandhi?
The matriarch of the Gandhi family, Sonia Maino, runs the Congress party much like her predecessors—a personal fiefdom. An error of birth kept her away from the top spot, and she had the meek, non-threatening Manmohan Singh warming the prime minister’s seat until she could push her cubs into the position. The mother, coming from traditional Italian stock, favoured the boy, and therefore, kept Priyanka on the sidelines. It’s only now, when the Rahul formula seems to be failing, that she has allowed Priyanka to make her political debut.
Priyanka’s sartorial statements have evolved to cast her in the image of her erstwhile grandmother. With the cropped curls, the nose and the draped sarees, Priyanka is being touted as the successor to Indira Gandhi, with the hope that her nose doesn’t turn out to be Pinocchio’s. A carefully crafted fairy tale, that casts Priyanka as the political reincarnation of her grandmother, is being spun to ensnare voters.
It remains to be seen as to what turns the Priyanka story takes. Would it become a story of success, horror or entertainment for INDIA? Could she also engineer the political machinations of Indira Gandhi, and continue her Machiavellian tactics for upholding political legacy—such as breaking up the Congress in 1967, election decoupling, the Emergency and Bhindranwale?
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Religion, caste rhetoric
It is ironic that the Congress, after creating a North-South divide , has decided to field Priyanka from the Gandhi safe seat of Wayanad. Wayanad, which is as South as South gets. It was chosen by Rahul Gandhi as a backup to his traditional Amethi. The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat was carved out during the delimitation exercise of 2008 that favoured the Congress.
Congress candidate MI Shanavas won the Wayanad seat in 2009 and 2014, followed by Rahul Gandhi in 2019 and 2024. The seat became available to Priyanka when Rahul Baba decided to leave it in favour of the moody Amethi, which he had wrested back with great difficulty from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Smriti Irani. There is no regional rhetoric now as to why a North Indian Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is being fielded for a seat in Kerala.
The party that seeks to take the social development of India back to medieval times through the caste census needs to seriously consider the question of Priyanka Gandhi’s caste. In 1997, Priyanka Gandhi married Robert Vadra, who again, surprise surprise, is a Christian. His mother is the Anglo-Indian Maureen Vadra, whose ancestry can be traced back to Scotland.
Robert’s father, Rajinder Vadra, before marrying Maureen, changed his traditional Sialkoti Punjabi Vadehra surname to the anglicised ‘Vadra’. So, if Priyanka takes her husband’s caste or gotra, she would have none because he is Christian. So where does this leave Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who consistently pushes for a caste census? Will she now ask her brother, mother or other party members to publish the caste census that was conducted in Congress-ruled Karnataka in 2014?
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Priyanka Gandhi’s doublespeak
Priyanka, while campaigning for the 2021 Uttar Pradesh election, categorically stated that people shouldn’t vote on the basis of caste and religion in order to make their elected representatives more accountable. Now that she has joined politics, she has done a complete volte-face on the story and supports her party’s regressive demand for a caste census because it will help give ‘equal representation’.
Moreover, Priyanka Gandhi’s husband Robert Vadra is her liability too, the proverbial cross she must bear. No amount of whitewashed family photos can remove this albatross around Priyanka’s neck and deflect from charges of corruption and wrongdoing.
Priyanka’s declaration of her assets as a paltry Rs 12 crore is no laughing matter. Her immovable assets “comprise inherited agricultural land in the Mehrauli area of New Delhi, which she shares with her brother, Rahul Gandhi. The land, along with a farmhouse, is valued at Rs 2.1 crore.”
I would be happy to purchase this ‘farmhouse’, in the centre of Mehrauli, for Rs 5 crore. In fact, her art collection alone is widely regarded as invaluable. Yes Bank Founder Rana Kapoor, in a statement to the Enforcement Directorate in 2022, alleged that Priyanka “forced” her to buy an MF Hussain artwork so that she could fund her mother’s treatment in New York. Who knows what other hidden assets will crawl out of her closet?
Meenakshi Lekhi is a BJP leader, lawyer, and social activist. Her X handle is @M_Lekhi. Views are personal.