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Priyanka Vadra’s remark that she was willing to campaign all over Uttar Pradesh to help her brother Rahul if he so wished looked as if it was casually said.

But there was nothing casual about it. For, Priyanka — she has so far confined herself to Amethi and Rae Bareli, the constituencies of her brother and mother Sonia Gandhi — was expressing her willingness, for the first time, to campaign all over the state.

Her words cannot but be part of a calibrated strategy that has been put into motion for UP. Hypothetically speaking, if Rahul does not take up her offer, his opponents will talk about a rift between brother and sister. Information and Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni has also endorsed the idea. That would not have been the case, had the idea not been endorsed by Sonia.

The way Priyanka articulated her offer, it was clear that she was not jumping into active politics, but was only going to campaign to help her brother. She is a Brahmastra the party was expected to keep up its sleeve for full play only in 2014. But now, she may come in, in a limited sort of way, given the high stakes that exist for Rahul, who has decided to lead the campaign in UP, putting his personal prestige on stake.

The 2012 semi-finals, as the UP elections are being billed, may therefore get a foretaste of things to come in 2014. Priyanka’s entry will electrify the campaign in UP, which has historically determined the road to Delhi.

If she were to address even half a dozen rallies in different parts of the state along with Rahul, she will intensify the ‘hawa’ that he has managed to create in recent weeks, undertaking a whirlwind tour through constituencies, staying in Dalit homes, taking up cudgels on behalf of the farmers around Bhatta Parsaul and ensuring a package for the ‘bunkars’ of eastern UP.

The Congress’s handicap so far has been the absence of a community in its kitty. Mayawati starts off with roughly 15% Jatav votes in every constituency, who remain committed to her, and will in all probability vote for her in greater numbers this time, sensing a threat to her ‘gaddi.’

Her main challenger, Mulayam Singh Yadav and son Akhilesh — the young Yadav has been drawing large and enthusiastic crowds wherever he has gone on his yatras and has tried to give the SP an image makeover — can rely on the Yadav community’s support, again in greater measure than before.

The Brahmins, who had swung to the BSP in 2007, ensuring a clear majority for Mayawati, are unhappy with her but do not want to back the SP, given its ‘goonda raj’ last time. They might look at the BJP but episodes like the one involving Babu Singh Kushwaha have done nothing for the party’s anti-corruption credentials.

Will the Brahmins look at the Congress again, as they did in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, enabling it to notch 22 seats, if the Gandhi duo is seen to be going for the kill? If that happens, the Muslims will swing towards the Congress substantially, making the party a player in a respectable number of seats. Besides creating a general environment, the Priyanka-Rahul combine may turn out to be a bait for specific communities.

The beginning of a definite revival in UP will have its spinoff effects nationally — on Rahul’s ‘larger’ role, the UPA’s image and stability, the future of the economic reforms agenda that the PM wants to pursue, and on determining the next incumbent of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Those who saw Priyanka in action in Rae Bareli in 1999 have not forgotten how her one sentence — ‘How did you allow someone who had stabbed my father in the back to enter Rae Bareli?’ — turned the election against an otherwise well-placed Arun Nehru.
Nor have they forgotten how a Dalit couple stood by the road, hands folded, tears streaming down their cheeks, to the playing of the film song, ‘Baharon phool barsao mera mehboob aya hai’, waiting to see her cavalcade. And spotting them, she ran across and touched their feet and they stroked her face with their gnarled hands. Like it or not, Priyanka exudes a natural, born-to-rule chemistry.

It is early days to conclude how the situation will pan out, for there is no doubt that parties do take time to rebuild. But certainly, Priyanka’s offer to campaign all over UP could introduce a new element in the election, and it could turn out to be a game-changer.

The writer is a social and political commentator