Priyanka's 'shock & awe' entry rattles BJP not just in east UP, but beyond too

Appear where you are not expected” — is a key rule of the art of war — and it has been followed by the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh to shock its detractors ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s entry into active politics is intended to tie down the BJP top brass in the key state where the SP-BSP tie-up has already muddled the electoral waters for the saffron party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

If Amit Shah, who is hailed as the Chanakya by the faithful, remains entangled in the 80 seats of the Ganga-Yamuna region, especially in eastern UP, it may lead to BJP neglecting its flanks in other states, especially in the rest of the Hindi heartland for the Grand Old Party to “plunder”. For the Congress, it would mean its job half done for a good show in the Lok Sabha polls.

The surprise is not only for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, but is equally on BSP supremo Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav of the SP who threw “crumbs” at the Congress by leaving it only Amethi and Rae Bareli, projecting it as a “magnanimous gesture” towards Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.

It was virtually a signal that it was time the Congress shut shop in the state after the 2014 debacle followed by the fiasco in the Assembly polls in 2017. Ms Mayawati and Mr Akhilesh Yadav had in a way suggested that the Grand Old Party was on its deathbed in UP and they were helping it to revive by providing ventilator in the ICU. There could not have been a bigger insult to a national party which has ruled India for most of the period since Independence.

The BJP will have itself to blame if it carried the illusion that Ms Priyanka Gandhi’s entry meant the failure of the leadership of Mr Rahul Gandhi. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The entry of Ms Priyanka has come only after Mr Rahul Gandhi led the party to victory in the three Hindi heartland states two months back, giving Modi-Shah a run for their money in the Assembly polls on their home turf a year back.

The Congress move has been well thought out and not an off-the-cuff response to an evolving situation. It is neither a panic reaction in the face of the Modi-Shah threat of a “Congress-mukt” Bharat. Politics is not a static game and Mr Modi has not been made Prime Minister for eternity. The Congress has turned a trap and a crisis into an opportunity.

If Mr Rahul Gandhi had played by the rules of the Mayawati-Akhilesh duo, it would have meant the end of national dreams of the Cong-ress as the regional satraps all over would have attempted to play “Uttar Pradesh” on them. The way to power in Delhi goes via Lucknow, and therefore the hardest battle is bound to be fought in UP.

The Congress has played a smart game by keeping the options open for a united fight against the BJP in Uttar Pradesh by signaling that it is not averse to doing business with the BSP and SP. The ball has been cleverly left in their court.

Besides, it is a fact that Mr Modi, who has declared himself to be a “UP wallah”, will have to contest from Varanasi. He will have virtually no option to move to any other seat in the state in the wake of Ms Priyanka’s appointment as the Congress in-charge of eastern UP.

This is because a change of constituency would mean Mr Modi accepting defeat even before the beginning of the battle. If the general appears panicky, it does not take time for the army to flee. A weakness on the part of the one projected as having a “56-inch chest” could be the end of the dream of a second term.

In fact, Ms Priyanka’s entry has been a shock and awe strategy at its best as the development is going to shake things up for the Congress not merely in Uttar Pradesh but beyond too, as the political clock is ticking fast. The biggest uptick of the development is that it has brought more cheer to the Congress worker already upbeat after the Modi-Shah duo got humbled in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan by their leader often being ridiculed by the BJP.

The Congress victories have helped break the halo of invincibility around the saffron duo who have used every trick in the trade to have their way to power in several states. Now Modi-Shah would face a double-barrel attack from the brother-sister combine. The biggest plus point of Ms Priyanka is that she has the temperament and the guts of Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar, who enters the den of the baddies to beat the hell out of them.

Some two decades back, when the BJP fielded Arun Nehru from Rae Bareli to take on family loyalist Satish Sharma, a combative Ms Priyanka made mincemeat of the saffron challenge by her remarks expressing anguish over the development. “I have a complaint against you,” she had told the voters. “A man who committed treachery when he was in my father’s ministry, who stabbed a brother in the back — answer me — how did you let such a man in here? How did he dare come here?”

This had an electrifying effect and Mr Nehru could not even end up as the runner-up but was thrown into the fourth position. The BJP will never admit it, but it is a fact that the “late cut” by the Congress has not only shocked it, but has resulted in floundering its poll strategy for UP and beyond.

It is an open secret that Ms Priyanka has often proved to be a bugbear for the BJP as the saffron leaders in their heart of hearts have always envied her connect with the masses. And Ms Priyanka is determined to prove she is not in the typical dynast mould like many, but a person who takes challenges head on in a tougher terrain.

It is this very persona of her that she didn’t choose the path of a soft landing in politics but took the toughest route of becoming the general secretary in charge of eastern UP, where the Congress is the weakest. It indicates her vision and goal of politics and that make a space for the party and herself through the connect with the people, and not just limited to political legacy.

It justifies one of her sharp quotes some years back that for her politics was about people, and not position.

In the last Lok Sabha polls, the worry for BJP strategists was whether the Congress would spring a surprise and suddenly field Ms Priyanka against Mr Modi in Varanasi to give the BJP’s then PM candidate a run for his money. “Good women go by the rules, brave women make the rules”, goes a saying, and the time is not far off to see how much it is apt for Ms Priyanka Gandhi.

The writer is associated with the Indian National Congress and is a former chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Electronics Development Corporation