What passes for democratic politics in India is something of a strange beast. Take, for example, the announcement in recent days that Priyanka Gandhi – scion of the dynasty that has produced three former prime ministers – is to run for the Indian parliament for the first time. She will stand for the main opposition Congress party (controlled lock, stock and barrel by the Gandhi family) in a by-election in Wayanad, a safe seat in the southern state of Kerala, that will be vacated by her brother and de facto leader of Congress, Rahul Gandhi. Victory is pretty much guaranteed. Rahul will continue to represent the seat of Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, which was once the constituency of Indira Gandhi, his grandmother, and later of Sonia Gandhi, his mother. Welcome to party politics, Indian-style.
The family’s stranglehold on the Congress party as its route to power has proved hard to break
The latest development serves as formal notice that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty – a family that has dominated India’s political landscape for the best party of a century – is back in the political big time.
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