The man popularly called India's 'damaad', Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law featured in posters at the party's Loktantra Bachao rally in the national capital today.


Vadra, who is married to Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka (and remains the party's final hope for a comeback) has campaigned for his brother-in-law and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and party chief Sonia Gandhi but he has never addressed a rally, nor has he been part of posters.


So today's poster with Vadra firmly ensconced between Sonia and Rahul raises the question whether this is Vadra's tacit push into politics by the party high command. Apparently not so. NDTV reports that Vadra's picture was added to the poster without sanction by a Congress worker and Gandhi loyalist named Jagdish Sharma.

This comes even as Enforcement Directorate conducted searches in Bikaner related to the probe into a land deal pertaining to Robert Vadra. In January Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria had said that the Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law has not been given any clean chit in the Bikaner "land grab" case. The state home minister said investigations into the case are still underway. 

The state government had on December 31, 2014 cancelled 18 mutations (transfer of ownership) found to be illegal in private persons' name.

According to Bikaner administration sources, the 374.44 hectares of land was illegally allotted or possessed in 2006-7 by some villagers, who were "wrongfully" shown as farmers displaced by Mahajan Field Firing Range of the Army.

It was alleged that Vadra's company also purchased chunks of land.

But clearly Vadra harbours political ambitions. In 2012 Vadra, 46, had chosen Rae Bareli, Sonia Gandhi's bastion in UP, to announce his ambitions. Astride a motorcycle, he had declared: "If people want, I can join politics."

When the people and the party maintained a stoic silence, and the NDA government upped the ante on his land deals, Vadra remained in the sidelines.

Then last month, Vadra in an interview to ANI said he didn't need Priyanka Gandhi to enhance his life. "I did not need Priyanka to enhance my life, I think I had enough. My parents gave me enough.

"I am born and brought up here, would never leave my country, no pressure, even if I am humiliated. No matter what the government says, I have the ability to sustain and to absorb. I have a very strong and good family which gives me strength."

As for his entry into politics, Vadra said, "I would not say never, let's see what future has in store for me."