Why Priyanka Gandhi Vadra might not be able to help Congress in Madhya Pradesh elections

Congress Party's General Secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, kick-started the campaigning for the Madhya Pradesh (MP) elections from Jabalpur today (June 13). The elections in MP, along with four other states, are due later this year, where Congress has an uphill task at hand—to wrest the state from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

However, the Congress party might not actually benefit from Gandhi's exploits in the state. MP is heavily polarized, and Gandhi might not be able to counter it with her style of politics. Moreover, her track record in elections since 2019 is self-explanatory, showing that she still has a lot of groundwork to do.

Priyanka Gandhi’s strike-rate worse than Rahul Gandhi

In essence, Priyanka Gandhi has never won an election for the Congress party since 2019, when she was formally inducted into the party. Her strike-rate of winning in the last four years is just 5%. For the greater part of her life, Gandhi stayed out of politics, made occasional guest appearances, and then went back to her normal life/

In fact, her strike-rate of winning seats is even worse than her brother Rahul Gandhi's, whose winning strike-rate in the 2019 elections was 17%, according to a report by India Today.

In the 2019 general elections, Priyanka Gandhi campaigned for the Congress party in 38 constituencies, leading 44 rallies. Out of this, the party won only 2 seats.

Much of her work was concentrated in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the most important state in the general elections. Gandhi held 26 rallies in the state but could win only 1 seat, Rae Bareli, which is her mother Sonia Gandhi's seat, and considered a safe seat for the Congress as it is an old party bastion, previously represented by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. So, Priyanka didn't have much to do in that seat.

Needless to say, Priyanka Gandhi's rallies in Delhi, MP, Jharkhand, and Haryana hardly benefited the party.

Congress suffered the worst defeat in UP under Priyanka Gandhi

Priyanka Gandhi was handed over the charge of UP elections in September 2020 when she was appointed as the General Secretary of the entire state.

She spent considerable time in the state and worked extremely hard. According to a report, Gandhi led nearly 209 rallies and even surpassed CM Yogi Adityanath's number of 203.

Still, her presence showed no effect on the electoral outcomes, and Congress fared the worst in history in UP state elections, getting only 2 seats. Prior to this, Congress got 7 seats in 2017, under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.

Why her presence might not benefit Congress in MP

It has been seen in the last 4 years that Gandhi's appeal in the Hindi-speaking states is considerably low. She might have an impact on the electorate in the southern states, but in north India, Priyanka Gandhi still has a long way to go.

On top of that, a state like MP is polarized on religion and is tilted towards the BJP, which champions polarization politics.

This can be seen from the fact that the BJP still managed to put up an equal fight against the Congress in 2018, despite the anti-incumbency wave. Though the Congress won the elections with a margin of just 6 seats, obtaining 114 seats compared to BJP's 109, the result showed that the power of Shivraj Singh Chouhan was immense in MP.

The state got back the BJP government after two years when Jyotiraditya Scindia walked away with 22 MLAs to the BJP, and the Congress government fell.

Priyanka might be called Congress's Brahmastra or the secret weapon, but in MP, her efforts won't produce results. In the MP elections, Rahul Gandhi should lead the campaign with a bigger role given to former chief ministers Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh.

Best strategy for Congress in MP

For the Congress party, the best strategy to start the MP elections preprations would be to hand over the campaigning to Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh. Being old stalwarts in politics, both know the state well and which seats to target.

A state like MP needs strong leaders who are connected with the ground reality. The Congress party will have to devise an exceptional strategy to beat the BJP, which looks pretty strong and has been ruling the state for the last 13 years.