<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br />When life-saving elements are in short supply, pull out a <a href="http://spirituality.indiatimes.com/articleshow/211068.cms">Gandhi</a>. It has always worked for the Congress, why not now? So come New Year and 10 Janpath is expected to gift-wrap the biggest of them - <a href="http://www.thetimesofindia.online/articleshow/372341.cms">Priyanka Vadra Gandhi ready to serve</a> the party and nation.<br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="18.2%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <br /></td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">Priyanka Vadra Gandhi</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">It has for long been touted as the political debut of the decade.
We are talking showstopper stuff here. The busy buzz at a non-political social get-together ceases abruptly when the Gandhi scion walks in. And somewhere, a Congressman is even now mumbling a prayer that Priyanka beti join politics soon and heft the party out from the quagmire it''s fast disappearing into. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">In another corner, a partyman, recently joined, sits dark and brooding, hungover, not a pretty sight. Looking deep into his half-filled glass of alcohol, he declares: "The problem with the Congress is that there are no workers. Everyone is a </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">neta</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">." On the large television screen, Ambika Soni coyly gives her best face to the camera and swears undying loyalty to her party president.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">The young Congressman grimaces. "We need more people who can knit the party back together. And who can win elections." The conversation is inevitably leading to one thing now. You can cut him short there or let it go on. "Priyanka..." you offer in the vague hope that the noxious cloud of nicotine and negatives will lift with the magic word. It does.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Meet the country''s oldest party, the kind where the word <a href="http://www.thetimesofindia.online/articleshow/274844.cms">Gandhi sells</a> so well, they have also appropriated the distinctly unrelated Mohandas Karamchand. Matriarch Sonia Gandhi is only just coming to terms with the fact that not only has her band of merry-makers misled her wholesomely about the <a href="http://www.thetimesofindia.online/articleshow/292255.cms">party''s electoral prospects</a>, it has also failed to educate her on the limitations of her own political appeal. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">So suddenly the Congress looks rather bedraggled and heads shall roll. Hitherto precious ones like Soni, who is already believed to have got an earful from an increasingly proactive Priyanka </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">beti</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""> for misleading mom. When the axe shall come down is the only unknown - before the family gets down to a cosy winter vacation or after. After most likely, to coincide with Priyanka''s advent into politics.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Not that she has been very apolitical. Priyanka already runs her mother''s Amethi affairs and in the last year has made sure she is among the quotable quotes. No <a href="http://www.thetimesofindia.online/articleshow/327106.cms">poster</a> in the interiors is complete without a paean to Priyanka. All that remains now is a formal debut. That could well be as a party General Secretary in the new set-up. </span><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""> </span><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">There is no time like now. The party has touched nadir and is likely to stay there unless a miracle is performed. Sonia Gandhi can continue to reshuffle her pack till kingdom come and will still have the same old, tired faces that can scarcely excite party workers, leave alone the electorate. Thinking is a luxury the average Congress leader does not allow himself lest he get blasphemous and think the unthinkable - that Sonia should confine herself to keeping the party together and get together a more realistic challenge to the Atal charisma.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">With no faces, the Congress has to play its one ace. If Priyanka can''t give the ailing party a shot in the arm nothing will. There''s been no good news to send home for a long time now. So the depressed Congressman can cross his fingers and hope early 2004 brings the </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">beti</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""><formid=367815></formid=367815></span></div> </div>
