You mess with Rahul, you mess with Priyanka
Priyanka Vadra today announced she would sue all Indian news organisations for blaming her brother Rahul Gandhi for their party's defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Rahul, the Congress party's vice-president, led his troops into battle against Narendra Modi against all odds; his party ended with its historically lowest tally, causing three generations of his family - namely Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, all of whom won at least once a decisive mandate - to turn in their graves.
Citing isolated incidents of rebellion and party workers speaking out of turn, most media organisations and analysis have squarely laid the blame for the defeat at Rahul's doorstep.
This has annoyed Priyanka, known to be the firebrand of the family who is sensitive to attacks on her mother, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, and her brother.
"To allege that a dynast would willingly lead his/her party to defeat as if the party were an object devoid of emotion is morbid enough, but to ascribe it to the intention of perpetuating some sort of dynastic political aspiration is even more sickening," she said in a statement that was blindly and faithfully carried in full by all TV channels and print media outlets.
Priyanka is believed to have pointed out that family retainer AK Antony, who holds a post in the Congress Working Committee and is the chairman of the party's Disciplinary Action Committee, was asked to look into the reasons for the party's crushing defeat. In his report, which has not even been distributed in the party's higher echelons, the defeat is attributed to party infighting, corruption, the media, lack of effective pre-poll alliances, and other nonsense; but it is not attributed in the least to Rahul.
Bolstered by the clean chit from Antony, Mrs Vadra said she was sending legal notices to each and every news organisation in India, and was mulling criminal and civil action against news organisations in every country on the face of the planet for "defaming" her brother and making "false allegations against her family".
The fact that Priyanka is articulate and she does not shy away from a fight has led many a Congressman (and woman) to pray for an early retirement for Rahul so that Priyanka can take charge and regain the Congress' lost glory.
They point to the manner in which she told the NDA government off after civil aviation minister A Gajapathy Raju suggested withdrawing the privilege of security exemption granted to her husband Robert Vadra. She had immediately shot off a letter to the Special Protection Group (SPG), the outfit set up to protect the prime minister but now protects 440 people, asking for security exemption while travelling to be withdrawn for she and her family. A chastened Union home minister Rajnath Singh immediately mumbled that Vadra would continue to get immunity.
Sharp media analysts pointed out that Priyanka's threat to news organisations was similar in wording to a threat she recently issued against the Sunday Guardian for reporting that her son Rehan would be adopted by Rahul so that the Gandhi surname would be carried forward. The report, however, did not say anything about Priyanka "giving" her son up for adoption or Rahul actually raising him; it sounded more as if a legal manoever was being devised to pass down the dynasty brand name.
Rahul could not be contacted for comment as he and Robert were out of the country, holidaying. Sources claimed that Rahul was considering adopting Robert instead.