2014: The Election That Changed India (45 page)

Culturally, globalization even spurred a return-to-roots faddishness, a nationalism born from anxieties about westernization. This unique historical moment where consumer culture and fascination with wealth sat alongside nationalism and a desire to see India as a First World economy created conditions for the Modi phenomenon. He promised wealth, uber-nationalism and access to quality public goods for those he liked to describe as the ‘neo-middle class’. This ‘neo-middle class’ was, in a sense, Modi’s answer to the Congress’s aam aadmi, and captured the vaulting aspirations of a
rapidly changing India, from a taxi driver to a call centre operator and from a pizza delivery boy to a hair stylist in a small town. In this new India, within a fiercely competitive political environment, Sonia Gandhi seemed like a neta from another era; a younger, restless, aspirational India had no time for history lessons in Bharatiyata.

By early April, the whispers in the Congress corridors were getting louder: ‘If Rahul can’t deliver, if Sonia can’t revive us, can Priyanka save us?’

Like her mother, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has always been an enigma. She carries the allure of the family surname, yet remains intensely private. Her dressing style is delightfully schizophrenic—she is sometimes seen in international-style designer wear at Delhi parties, and at other times goes native in handloom saris in Amethi and Rae Bareli. Charismatic, charming, good-looking and intelligent, she is a media favourite, an effortless occupant of newspaper front pages and TV headlines.

I first met Priyanka during the 1999 general elections. She was in Amethi, supervising Sonia Gandhi’s debut foray into electoral politics. We had a programme on NDTV called
Follow the Leader
and the consensus in the newsroom was that Priyanka would be an ideal choice for it. I telephoned Sushil Kumar Shinde, the senior Maharashtra leader who was then the party’s point person for Amethi, and asked if he could help arrange an interview. ‘I don’t know for sure, Rajdeep. Why don’t you come to Amethi and take a chance?’ he suggested helpfully.

When we reached Amethi, the security presence around the Gandhis was intimidating. Nor could we find a decent place to stay. I spent the night in a tiny dingy room with Shinde as my room-mate.

‘Let’s go early morning to Priyankaji’s place. There is less security then. If she sees you, she might agree,’ Shinde advised.

So, at 6 the next morning, anxious for my interview, I parked myself outside the Munshiganj guest house where the Gandhis were staying. I needn’t have worried. The moment Priyanka arrived, she appeared to recognize me (television does have its advantages!) and offered us a cup of chai. I mentioned that we wanted to spend the day travelling with her on the campaign trail. She readily agreed and almost instantly got miked up for her first media interview.

For the next twelve hours, the young woman was pure television box office. She was wonderfully effervescent and spontaneous as she handled party workers and excited crowds with ease. She was able to strike an instant rapport with women in particular. Many of them would say,
‘Beti, aap toh bilkul Indiraji kee tarah dikhti hai!’
(You look a lot like Indira Gandhi.)

I must confess I was bowled over. We even had lunch in the middle of a field in Amethi with Shinde lovingly serving us parathas and achar, all of it captured on camera. A few years later when Shinde became Maharashtra chief minister, I teased him that it was his lunch service in Amethi that did the trick!

I asked Priyanka whether she would enter politics. ‘No, no. I am only here to help my mother. Otherwise, I am happy being away from it all,’ she said with a smile. It’s a refrain I would hear almost constantly for the next fifteen years. In 2004, when I returned to Amethi, she was there again, only this time she was helping her brother and mother who had now shifted to the neighbouring Rae Bareli constituency.

I kept in touch with Priyanka. She had kindly given me her mobile number, would always reply to an SMS and was helpful in fixing the odd meeting with Sonia. Occasionally, we’d bump into each other at a private gathering where she would be unfailingly gracious. The one time the equation seemed to sour was in 2012 when Kejriwal first raised the issue of her husband Robert Vadra’s land deals. I asked if she or Robert would like to respond.

Her response was terse. ‘Why don’t you journalists leave us alone?

Do you know what impact all of this is having on my children?’ I had read stories of how Priyanka was a devoted mother who often attended her children’s sports events in school. She also strongly denied the Delhi gossip that she and Robert had separated. ‘Where do you guys get all these stories from?’ She sounded genuinely hurt and angry. I backed off a bit.

Till 2014, it was clear that Priyanka had drawn a Lakshmanrekha on her involvement in politics. Whenever a Congressman publicly implored her to contest elections, her office issued a strong denial. ‘If I decide to enter politics, I won’t do it in some secretive manner,’ she would tell me. The 2009 election victory appeared to settle any doubts as to who would take forward the family legacy. A doting sister, Priyanka seemed content to remain in Rahul’s shadow, their us-versus-the-rest relationship most famously captured in the photograph of the siblings arm in arm in mutual consolation after the UP defeat in 2012.

The year 2014, though, was different. The Congress was in serious trouble and Rahul’s leadership was under the scanner. Priyanka was still unwilling to play a formal role in the party’s decision-making, but it was clear that her involvement was growing beyond Amethi. She would be spotted visiting Rahul’s house while strategy meetings were on and she had been involved with the Congress advertisement campaign with every creative being shown to her. ‘She may not have been hands-on, but she certainly wasn’t hands off,’ is how a Congress insider describes her presence.

From early April, Priyanka was in Amethi and Rae Bareli. Her brother and mother were the party’s main campaigners elsewhere; she was needed to keep the family turf secure. Amethi was no longer a safe constituency—in the 2012 assembly elections, the SP had won three of the five segments, the Congress just two (they had lost all the Rae Bareli seats too). Rahul had done some good work in the area—most notably, a women’s self-help group project—but UP’s perennial issues, especially bijli, sadak, pani and shiksha troubled the residents here as well.
‘Sir, yahan toh andhera hi andhera hai’
(There is darkness everywhere),’ is how one Amethi resident put it to me.

In fact, one could sense a growing frustration amongst the people about Amethi’s stagnant condition. At more than one ‘Nukkad Sabha’ that Priyanka addressed, she would have to listen to irate villagers speaking out:
‘Priyankaji, dus saal ho gaye, Rahulji ke aane se kuch nahin badla’
(Ten years have passed, nothing has changed with Rahulji coming here). The Indian voter is still attracted by the family name; the Nehru–Gandhi brand has a magnetic appeal in their bastion. But voters in Amethi are no different to their peers elsewhere and they can no longer be taken for granted by promises without delivery.

I never quite understood why UP’s VIP constituencies like Amethi and Rae Bareli haven’t seen greater progress. One only has to look towards the Pawar bastion of Baramati in Maharashtra to see what a VIP constituency can look like. In sharp contrast to Amethi, the Pawars had turned a sleepy village into a dynamic agro-industrial hub. The Gandhis clearly hadn’t shown the entrepreneurial vision of the Pawars in transforming lives in a backward region.

Perhaps there was just something in the air of the Gangetic plain that retarded growth. It was almost as though the sharply polarized politics here had placed caste and community above vikas. Or maybe there were just well-entrenched interests and mafias committed to keeping the industry of backwardness alive and thriving. Certainly, the adversarial relationship between the state and Central governments didn’t help. My own view is that the Gandhis, like many feudal politicians, were trapped in a
mai–baap
culture and that the odd public sector project can never be a substitute for long-term infrastructure (Amethi’s roads are designed to rupture the backbone).

The BJP had sensed that the breeze of parivartan that was blowing through UP could, if not sweep, then certainly challenge, the Gandhi family dominance in this eastern UP pocket. For years, the Opposition had been accused of giving the Gandhis a soft landing in their pocket borough. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah were determined to change that perception.

Which is why the party dramatically announced the candidature
of Smriti Irani from Amethi. A television soap star-turned-neta, the feisty and fearless Smriti was ready for a new role. Smriti had once spoken out against Modi on the Gujarat riots but then quite successfully (and uniquely, I might add) had been able to win him over. Modi liked Smriti’s unflinching spirit and communication skills (I rather think he also saw her modern woman in a sari–sindoor image as a potential long-term counter to Sushma Swaraj whom he did not like). On prime-time television, we journalists appreciated Smriti’s willingness for a fiery joust—she always came to shows well prepared and spoiling for a good fight. As a Rajya Sabha MP taking on Rahul, she had nothing to lose. ‘I am going to Amethi to win—it’s not a token fight,’ she told me.

Also fighting from Amethi was the AAP, which put up Kumar Vishwas, another TV-savvy neta. Unlike Smriti who saw Amethi as another step up the political ladder, Vishwas was looking for his fifteen minutes of fame. A Hindi poet, he was a great favourite on Hindi news TV because of his quick wit and sharp one-liners. I told him once in an interview that he was being seen as a ‘joker in the pack’ in Amethi. Pat came the reply:
‘Circus mein sabkee nigahein joker par hee toh hotee hai!’
(In a circus, all eyes are on the joker.)

Rahul and Priyanka versus Smriti versus Vishwas—Amethi had suddenly become a made-for-TV high-profile contest. Priyanka knew she was in a contest this time, which is why she decided to raise the pitch. The moment she stepped out to address rallies, she became the Pied Piper of Amethi. Cameras would follow her everywhere. It became a media circus. The message to the newsroom was that one reporter must track Priyanka all the time—you never know what she would say where. Chasing Priyanka wasn’t easy for the swarm of journalists. They had to fight not just the heat but the SPG as well.

My former colleague Shreya Dhoundial was assigned the task of trailing Priyanka. She describes to me a typical day. 9 a.m.: stand outside the Munshiganj guest house; 10.30 a.m.: thrust your mike at the car window as Priyanka’s car leaves the gate but with no luck; 10.35: start chasing the car with around fifty other crew
and OB vans, with the SPG fleet as an immovable barrier in the middle; 11 a.m.: Priyanka stops to meet people, so you stop, try and shoulder your way through the circle of towering AK-47-wielding commandos, get your mike as far forward as you can towards her, she just smiles and drives away. ‘Finally, we struck a deal. If Priyanka spoke to us once every morning for even thirty seconds, then we would leave her alone for the rest of the day,’ Shreya told me later.

I remember asking Priyanka’s secretary Preeti Sahai whether it was worth my coming to Amethi and seeking an interview. ‘For now, no interviews. She will only give sound bites while on the campaign,’ I was firmly told. 2014 was no 1999. Then, there were just a handful of cameras. Now, with hundreds of news channels around, getting an exclusive with Priyanka was that much more difficult.

The sound bites, too, were well choreographed, designed to create just enough news to keep the hungry bite-soldiers (as we referred to our reporters) feeling happy and also to take potshots at the BJP leadership: ‘You don’t need a 56-inch chest to run India but a big heart!’ ‘How can a person who snoops on other women respect the Indian woman!’ Her best Indira Gandhi-style regally dismissive remark about the BJP was that they were ‘running around like panic-stricken rats’. For news channels, these sound bites made perfect headlines. Priyanka Gandhi taking on Modi became an almost regular sideshow for about a fortnight in the larger electoral battleground.

Priyanka’s punchy remarks seemed to get under Modi’s skin. He hit back and, unsurprisingly, Robert Vadra was the Achilles heel he targeted. ‘The UPA model of governance is RSVP (Rahul, Sonia, Vadra, Priyanka). How did one person multiply his earnings from one lakh to 400 crores in five years?’ he asked. The BJP’s media department even prepared a video detailing Vadra’s land transactions.

Right through her campaign, Priyanka did not take any direct questions on her husband—a dismissive gesture with the hand and a suggestion that this was a ‘bunch of lies by panic-stricken people’ was all that she was willing to say. I got the sense that one reason
she didn’t want to do a lengthy interview was the fear that the Vadra question would inevitably crop up.

I had briefly encountered Vadra at a couple of social events but never really spoken to him. Often dressed in black, with a tight belt, manicured moustache and a well-toned body, he looked more like a trendy dance show contestant in an
India’s Got Talent
show than a businessman (I am told Priyanka was swayed by his dancing charms when she first met him!). Robert had sent rejoinders to the media, but the charges just wouldn’t go away. The fact that many of his windfall profits had been acquired from deals in Congress-ruled states like Haryana and Rajasthan was a reality he could not escape from. He simply needed to answer more searching questions. Till he is willing to do so, Vadra will remain a cross that Priyanka will have to live with if she ever enters electoral politics. Already, his name painted on every security-exemption list at airports had enraged the aam janata as a symbol of undeserving VIP privilege.

The Priyanka factor meant that, for a few days at least of the election campaign, the media gaze appeared to shift from Modi. When I interviewed Amit Shah later, he caustically remarked, ‘Priyanka may be good for your TRPs, she will have no impact on this election.’

On 2 May, Shah made a sudden visit to Amethi to review the campaign. The feedback he got astounded him. Smriti, with her oratory and boundless energy, was making rapid gains. The general feeling was that the party had a real chance to cause a big upset in the constituency. ‘We really felt it was a
kaante ki takkar
[tough fight],’ says Sudhanshu Mittal, one of the BJP leaders who had based himself in Amethi.

An excited Shah rang up Modi. ‘I think you should do one rally in Amethi also. It could be just what we need to spring a surprise.’ Amethi had not been on Modi’s original itinerary—there had been a tacit understanding among the Opposition to avoid a direct conflict with the Gandhis. Modi, though, was itching for a fight.

The 5th of May was the last day for campaigning in Amethi. That was the day Modi decided to make his late charge into Rahul’s turf
by cancelling another scheduled public meeting. Almost overnight, an ad film detailing Amethi’s woes was prepared (see chapter 7). Shah asked the RSS–VHP–BJP local leaders to galvanize the cadres from the neighbouring areas. On the ground, Smriti’s workers reached out to as many villages as possible. Trucks and Boleros were loaded with expectant crowds. ‘Let’s give it our best shot—we have nothing to lose,’ Shah told his team.