Amethi:
More star power for the Congress and some sister power for Rahul Gandhi in UP. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is camping in the family stronghold of Amethi and Rae Bareli, says she will do anything for brother Rahul, including campaigning all over UP if he wants her to. And she is confident that, "he will win UP."
For the Congress, the UP elections next month are all about Rahul Gandhi this time, and Ms Vadra's obvious connect with the masses would stand her brother in good stead. Dressed in vibrant orange and red, Priyanka also wore a big smile as she said, "I will do anything to help my brother...I will do anything he requires me to do," when asked if she was open to campaigning beyond Amethi and Rae Bareli. He just had to ask.
But ask Priyanka if she will contest elections and the answer is always oblique. This time, it was a dimpled smile and she would merely say that her brother knows just how much to ask of her.
Right now, Ms Vadra is on a three-day tour of the area to meet party workers - Rae Bareli is represented by her mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and older brother Rahul Gandhi is the MP from Amethi. Priyanka said she would oversee elections for the 10 assembly segments in these constituencies; they go to the polls in the fourth and fifth phases of the UP elections. The Congress has seven of those 10 seats.
Of the three seats that have eluded the Congress even in the Gandhi bastion, one is that of Akhilesh Singh, an Independent candidate who has twice defeated the Congress in Rae Bareli Sadar, an Assembly segment that is part of Congress president Sonia Gandh's Lok Sabha constituency. Mr Singh dismisses the Priyanka factor saying, "People are beginning to realise that Priyanka only descends in UP just after the announcement of elections and the voters are beginning to ask, where is she for the rest of the five years?"
But grassroots Congress workers have always clamoured for Ms Vadra's presence during elections and partymen feel she will help in reaching out particularly to women in UP. Their war cry - "Didi will defeat Behenji."
The promise of more Priyanka all over the state would thus bring much cheer to the Congress, which is in a tough four-cornered battle with Mayawati, who rules UP, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and the BJP. The Congress had won 22 seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections under stewardship of Rahul Gandhi; the Congress hopes that its vote share will continue to increase in these elections and that its huge jump in performance in many assembly segments two years ago will reflect in the the number of seats it manages to win this time.
That view from Bundelkhand, where Rahul Gandhi was today, would seem a tad optimistic - the Congress only has two of the 19 seats in the region; the BSP has 15. And those numbers were reflected in the crowds that turned up to hear Rahul Gandhi, who arrived four hours late and just as well. The crowds had built up that much more by the time he did.
The Family Gandhi was, in fact, out in full campaign force today. With Priyanka anchoring home ground and Rahul taking his election roadshow to the Bundelkhand region of UP today, mother Sonia campaigned in neighbouring Uttarakhand.