New Delhi: Wishes poured in for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the lone Congress general secretary without any assigned portfolio, on her birthday Monday, with many leaders hailing her contributions towards strengthening the party.
While Congress media and publicity department chairperson Pawan Khera described Priyanka as the “quintessential sherni (lioness)”, the party’s social media head Supriya Shrinate showered a string of epithets on the Gandhi sibling, calling her “fighter, feisty, fierce, fabulous and fun”.
Priyanka turns 54 at a moment of renewed interest within the Congress, with some party leaders and workers expressing cautious hope that she may assume a more prominent role in the party’s affairs.
Her speech during the Vande Mataram debate in Parliament’s Winter Session in December 2025 prompted such speculation, and her appointment—three days into 2026—as the chairperson of the Congress screening committee for the Assam assembly elections has only added to it.
However, party leaders who favour a larger role for Priyanka say it is not her appointment alone that has fuelled such expectations.
They instead point to the choice of other leaders entrusted with the Congress’s Assam polls campaign, saying these choices are more telling and suggest that Priyanka may have moved past the setbacks she faced as the party’s in-charge for Uttar Pradesh during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2022 state elections.
While the name of Saharanpur MP Imran Masood, who recently caused a stir by suggesting that Priyanka could make a great prime minister, figures in the screening committee, the party has also appointed Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel as observers for Assam polls due to be held in March-April this year.
Both Shivakumar and Baghel are considered close to Priyanka who contested Lok Sabha elections for the first time in 2024 and won from Kerala’s Wayanad constituency.
Congress functionaries involved in the party’s Assam campaign say that the active involvement of “Team Priyanka” in the high-stakes contest against the BJP, led by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, is a calculated gamble, one that could either boost her standing or set her back in the party’s internal battle of perception.
Last year, the Congress appointed Gaurav Gogoi as the president of its Assam unit, projecting him as its face against Sarma. Gogoi is the Congress’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha and the son of the late party stalwart Tarun Gogoi, who was the CM of Assam from 2001 to 2016.
“While officially, her (Priyanka) role is limited to the chairing the committee that will pick candidates, the involvement of people of Baghel, Shivakumar suggest that she will be at work in steering the overall campaign. Seen in that context, a victory in Assam will send her stocks soaring, while a defeat will dampen spirits,” a party functionary said.
Incidentally, Priyanka is the first member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to have either headed or served on a screening committee, a pre-election panel that has often courted controversy over candidate selection.
Most recently, a Congress screening committee constituted for the Bihar elections faced allegations of “selling tickets”.
Party functionaries argue that such controversies are less likely with Priyanka at the helm. The Congress unit in Assam is splintered in internal rival groups, and there is talk of CM Sarma continuing to wield influence within the party’s state unit, owing to his past deep roots in the party. Local leaders say Priyanka’s presence could help the Congress project a more unified front and mount a spirited campaign.
Other than the screening committee in Assam, Priyanka has played a key role in chalking out the Congress’s ongoing campaign against the Centre’s move to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-G RAM G).
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Priyanka—who until then had largely overseen the Rae Bareli and Amethi constituencies on behalf of her mother, Sonia Gandhi and brother, Rahul Gandhi—formally assumed the role of Congress general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The party went on to retain only Sonia Gandhi’s seat in the state, with Rahul losing Amethi to the BJP’s Smriti Irani. Three years later, Priyanka led the Congress’s assembly election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, where the party slumped to a tally of just two seats. Since then, she’s been a general secretary without any portfolio.
Last month, the Congress expelled its former Odisha MLA Mohammed Moquim, who, in a letter to Sonia Gandhi, had flagged “wrong decisions and misguided leadership choices” that weakened the party.
Among the suggestions that he made, Moquim sought a central role for Priyanka in the party’s affairs.
“Madam, with utmost humility, I firmly believe the nation and especially its youth are waiting for Smt Priyanka Gandhi ji to take a central, visible, and active leadership role…” he wrote.
(Edited by Vidhi Bhutra)
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