For years, Priyanka Gandhi has been a mystery to the Indian public. Considered the most charismatic member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has given India three prime ministers – more so than her mother, Sonia, and brother Rahul – she has nonetheless chosen to remain in the wings, playing a supporting role.
For years she has resisted calls to lead from the front by her own Congress party, sections of which regard her as “prime ministerial” material owing to her commanding personality, instead choosing to prioritise her private life with her husband and two children.
Now Priyanka, 52, has taken the plunge. The Congress announced recently she would stand in a byelection in Wayanad in Kerala, a safe seat vacated by Rahul. The date has not yet been announced by India’s Election Commission but by law, the election has to be held by December.
She will almost certainly win. It will bring all three members of the family into parliament. Though the decision to stand as an MP represents her debut into electoral politics, Priyanka has been politically active on and off since the late 1990s when she campaigned for her mother.
In 2018, the party gave her a formal role as the party’s general secretary in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
But it was her energetic role in the recent general election that everyone noticed. She emerged as a star campaigner – energetic and passionate, she drew huge crowds at the more than 100 rallies she addressed, and aimed acerbic barbs at the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
She called him a liar, weak, full of hollow talk, a king living in a palace, the boring “uncle” at weddings who gives sermons and lambasted him for using indecorous language that no other prime minister in Indian history had used.
The news of her standing as an MP electrified the Congress. Some in the party regard her as politically sharper than Rahul and capable of reviving a party that has been in steady decline even before Modi won the 2014 general election.
“We have all seen her speaking during the election campaign,” said the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. “She is one of the most impressive speakers and campaigners we have got and to have her in the Lok Sabha (lower house) will be a huge asset to the party.”
Asim Ali, a political researcher, wonders how Rahul and Priyanka will coexist. Could there be tensions? Even rivalry? There is no question of two rival power centres because the siblings are too close for that but what happens if Priyanka outshines her brother? What if the media lavish more attention on her than Rahul?
“I think the siblings will divide up their roles, with Priyanka concentrating on strengthening the party organisation while Rahul looks after ideology. Her great advantage is that she has no baggage, unlike Rahul who has many failures behind him,” said Ali.
The past suggests that Priyanka and Rahul will let nothing come between them. Their closeness goes back to when their idyllic childhood was shattered, first by the assassination in 1984 of their grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and later the assassination of their adored father, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991.
Unlike her brother, Priyanka once allowed a glimpse into her emotions about the tragedy. Speaking to NDTV channel in 2009, she said: “I was furious not just with my father’s killers but with the whole world.”
Earlier, in 2008, Priyanka had gone to Vellore jail to meet Nalini Sriharan, one of her father’s killers. Sriharan recounted the astonishing meeting later in a book, saying that Priyanka broke down. He said she asked him: “Why did you do it? My father was a good man, a soft man, you could have resolved anything over a discussion with him.”
Meeting Sriharan face to face, she explained to NDTV, was “my way of coming to peace with the violence and loss that I have experienced”.
Priyanka has never spoken about how Rahul was affected by the loss but since Sonia made it clear that her brother, 54, was to be the political heir, Priyanka has been a steadfast support to him in his long struggle to become a credible politician.
When the election results were announced on 4 June and an exultant Congress celebrated its better-than-expected performance (almost doubling its number of seats), Priyanka stayed in the wings, not even coming on to the stage when Rahul addressed the media. She let him savour the moment.
While commentators have nearly all noted her charisma and popular appeal, some have also observed an inability to suffer fools and hints of imperiousness.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party has criticised Priyanka and the family repeatedly for treating the Congress as a private fiefdom, in which no one outside can ever rise to the top.
Predictably, it responded to the news of Priyanka standing by accusing the Congress of perpetuating “dynastic” politics. “It proves the Congress is not a party but a family company,” said a BJP spokesperson, Shehzad Poonawalla.
The Political analyst Desh Ratan Nigam said Priyanka, who has had time away from active politics, had yet to show consistency.
“Whether she can be successful in changing the Congress’s fortunes depends on whether she can revive the grassroots of the party. Personality isn’t enough. She has to be serious and consistent unlike her brother who says something and then disappears,” said Nigam.
The BJP will also be poised to target Priyanka’s wealthy businessman husband, Robert Vadra, 55, at the first opportunity. A bodybuilding enthusiast, his business dealings have attracted accusations of tax evasion and illegal land deals.
In fact, in Delhi drawing rooms, it has been a source of lively debate among the elite as to what Priyanka saw in Vadra when she married him in 1997 in what it viewed as a mésalliance.
Since Vadra has an uncanny knack of making ill-advised remarks, the Congress party, which knows he is a favourite target of the BJP as the “dodgy damad” (son-in-law), will be hoping he will be more circumspect now his wife is about to start a new chapter as an MP.
• This article was amended on 14 August 2024. An earlier version incorrectly said that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi had been prime ministers of India.
