Educating Mrs Gandhi
George Iype in New Delhi
As the Congress's star campaigner hops from state to state to garner crucial
electoral support for the party, a handful of her close aides are working overtime to style her personal and political appeal to the voters.
When Sonia Gandhi resolved to step out of 10, Janpath, along with son Rahul and daughter Priyanka Vadra to campaign for the Congress, her first decision was to pick up a clutch of personal and political advisors who could fashion the typical Sonia imprint on her election tour across the country.
"She was a political novice. She had to be taught the fine of art of addressing mammoth rallies. But Sonia learned well and has now become India's number one crowd puller,"
says a frequent visitor to the Gandhi family home.
Certainly, Sonia has been so carefully and finely trained by her backroom boys that the Bharatiya Janata Party shudders to think of her addressing another election meeting.
Who are Sonia's image builders and speechwriters who have shaped her
initiation into active politics?
Congress sources say there are two categories of people whom Sonia depends on for her election tours. The first group include family friends, designer Romi Chopra, Professor Abid Hussain, former Indian ambassador to the US, Suman Dubey, former editor-in-chief, Indian Express and currently head of Dow Jones's operation in India, former Union minister Shiela Dixit and art restorer Rupika Chawla.
Every day, old Rajiv associates like Chopra, Hussain and Dubey meet at 10, Janpath, to finalise
the kind of speeches and issues that Sonia should make and raise. While the speeches are said to be
drafted by Hussain and Dubey in English, most of the Hindi translations are done by Sonia's old Hindi teacher Ratnakar Pandey -- the Congress
candidate from Varanasi -- who flies over to Delhi now and then on the language mission.
But before Sonia's speeches are finalised, vital political inputs for them are provided by a second group of loyalists like Arjun Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and
Madhavrao Scindia. Congress spin doctors like Jairam Ramesh and Vishwajit Prithvijit Singh also contribute to the scripts.
A senior Congress leader disclosed that it was Arjun Singh who provided "political fire to Sonia's speeches" where she attacked the BJP on the Ayodhya issue and challenged the United
Front government to reveal the controversial Bofors report.
While Scindia is in charge of providing comprehensive feedback on the campaign to her, Azad is her media manager.
Interestingly, none of Sonia's speeches have been vetted by party president Sitaram Kesri.
"Kesri has been completely ignored in the Sonia campaign. He is a
passive onlooker," a senior Congress leader told Rediff On The NeT.
But sources say Sonia is not someone who simply reads out what her friends write for
her. Every evening, Sonia along with son Rahul, daughter Priyanka and son-in-law Robert
Vadra sit down with the prepared speeches "to chip in moving anecdotes and weave in
emotions."
The anecdotes mainly refer to her late husband Rajiv Gandhi and mother-in-law Indira
Gandhi, whose sacrifices are spiced in between Sonia's speeches.
Rahul, who claims to be a business consultant based in London, landed in India for
Christmas, but has not yet gone back after his mother took the plunge.
While Sonia launched daughter Priyanka successfully at her first meetings at
Sriperumbudur, Cochin, Goa and Amethi, many believe she is grooming Rahul into
active politics.
Sources say Sonia's aides have crafted out political roles for Rahul, who resembles his father and Priyanka, whom Congressmen want to take over as the Youth Congress
president.
Rupika Chawla and Shiela Dixit help Sonia to shore up the Italian-born bahu's Indian credentials by choosing her attire for each
function.
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