Three Gandhis: And the prospect of a Congress version of double engine

The three Gandhis—Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka—would make an interesting case study for Harvard Business School. Never before in India’s independent history have three members of a single nuclear family been concurrently members of Parliament. A nuclear family implies parents and their biological children. Indian politics has had multiple dynasts serving in Parliament at the same time: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nephews and nieces. But India has never had three members of a nuclear family (mother, son, and daughter) sitting in Parliament at the same time.

 As the Harvard case study would discover, no other democracy has had such dynastic confluence in its principal national legislative body either. In India, the Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the Abdullahs of J&K, and the Pawars of Maharashtra have populated state Assemblies with blood relatives—but never have Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha been host to a parent and two biological children. In this, the three Gandhis are unique.

Rahul was a late entrant into electoral politics. He was 34 when he inherited his father Rajiv’s Amethi seat in 2004. Rajiv himself was a reluctant politician. Mother Indira Gandhi persuaded him to take brother Sanjay Gandhi’s place in Amethi in 1981, a year after Sanjay’s death in a crash of the private plane he was piloting.

After Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, Rajiv made it a point to keep his immediate family out of politics. Sonia at the time anyway hated Indian politics. Rahul and Priyanka were minors. After Rajiv’s assassination in 1991, Sonia grieved in private for the next seven years but in 1998 seized control of Congress. She hasn’t relinquished it. After installing son Rahul as MP from Amethi in 2004, Sonia, herself a Lok Sabha MP from the other Gandhi fiefdom Rae Bareli, was content with two members of her nuclear family serving in Lok Sabha. Priyanka remained outside Parliament.

Rahul has been Leader of the Opposition (LoP) for nearly two years. During that period, he has led Congress to defeat in five key elections: Lok Sabha, Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Bihar.The opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc kept the BJP tally in the 2024 Lok Sabha election down to 240 seats. But since the BJP-led NDA had fought the General Election as a pre-poll alliance, the opposition gained little in parliamentary terms. And what it gained in optics was lost months later by defeats in four successive state Assembly elections.

Rahul’s performance as LoP has come under increasing scrutiny, not only among I.N.D.I.A. allies but from voices within Congress. Most such voices are whispers. Fear of the Congress high command among even senior Congress leaders is a strong disincentive to speak out.

For example, one of the most outspoken Congress MPs, Shashi Tharoor, after a short spell of open defiance, was forced to seek a modus vivendi with the Gandhi family. The Kerala Assembly election looms and both sides needed a truce. Tharoor’s defiance melted. Rahul’s annoyance with his Thriuvanthapuram MP was placed in abeyance.

The whispers around Priyanka’s expanding political role have meanwhile grown louder, especially after Rahul’s venom-dripping speech in Parliament during the Budget Session. Most Congress MPs have long believed Priyanka has better political instincts than Rahul. Sonia Gandhi’s insistence on Rahul leading the party has quietened talk of Priyanka taking a greater leading electoral role while Rahul steps back into a more organisational role.

Multiple defeats for Congress under Rahul’s leadership and her own declining health prompted Sonia to ease daughter Priyanka into Lok Sabha from Wayanad, a safe constituency for the Gandhis. Muslims and Christians comprise over 50 per cent of its electorate. Sonia meanwhile quietly moved from Lok Sabha to Rajya Sabha. She knew the optics of the three Gandhis—mother, son and daughter—in Lok Sabha would be hard to explain, even to sycophants in Congress.

Sonia turns 80 in December this year. By the time of the next Lok Sabha election in 2029, she could decide to retire from active politics and vacate her Rajya Sabha seat. Priyanka and Rahul will form the double engine of Congress. Priyanka’s loyalty to her brother is total. She may be reluctant to replace him as party leader. But in the fullness of time, that may be electorally inevitable.