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Congress’ Face Off — Priyanka Chaturvedi

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Priyanka Chaturvedi was one of the strongest and vocal faces of the Congress, who with her microblogging site made Congress’ presence on social media active when nobody knew the party on social media and other political opponents were using the platform in their favour. As termed by Priyanka, she has to resign from Congress for the sake of ‘self-respect’ and ‘dignity’. She joined Shiv Sena in the presence of party supremo Uddhav Thackeray and Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray on Friday. Priyanka took this step after the Congress high command reinstated the party workers who had misbehaved with her during a visit to Mathura sometimes ago.

Priyanka Chaturvedi resigned from all the posts of Congress and told Rahul Gandhi in her resignation letter that she can’t stay on at the cost of her dignity. Prior to this, in a tweet on Wednesday, Chaturvedi had lambasted the Congress and expressed that the “lumpen goons” get preference over those who had “given their sweat and blood” to the party. She has alleged that the party men had misbehaved with her and also issued rape threats to her. On Friday morning, an upset Chaturvedi removed ‘AICC Spokesperson’ from her Twitter profile and tweeted her resignation letter that she sent to the Congress President Rahul Gandhi announcing her resignation primary membership of the party.

According to the reports, the UP Congress workers had misbehaved with her and heckled her when she was addressing a press conference on the Rafale deal in Mathura. The leaders were reportedly miffed with her over the possibility that she was seeking a ticket from the area. The Congress had initially removed them but recently, because of the elections and the need for local support, they were taken back on Monday, after Jyotiraditya Scindia, in charge of the campaign in Western UP, gave the move a go ahead. It was said that the men had expressed regret about their behaviour. Before her distress against Congress came out in public, it is also reported that her appeal to the former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi did not work and she felt that she was not given the respect that she deserved.

Priyanka Chaturvedi was the National Spokesperson of the Indian National Congress who managed her show quite well and had every grace to counter-attack the opponents and simultaneously defend the stand of the Congress party. Those interchanges might be one of the first times that social media played a direct and credited role in a hearing Congress after the 2014 defeat. She joined Congress in 2010 and became the General Secretary of Indian Youth Congress from North-West Mumbai in 2012. Also, in 2010, Chaturvedi had a significant presence on Twitter and was known for defending the policies of Congress party on the microblogging site. Because of this, in May 2013, Chaturvedi was nominated as the Spokesperson of AICC. As a spokesperson of Congress Party, Chaturvedi often took part in political debates on TV News Channels. She was also a member of ‘Communication Department’ headed by Randeep Surjewala and took part in political debates on Social Media. She has been a vociferous critic of Bharatiya Janta Party and its leader Narendra Modi.

It is remarkable that there are two national parties in India and these days, both are very much active on social media. Both parties have their paid volunteers and followers to boost their voices. Congress became much more visible in the recent time, earlier they were there for namesake. BJP was always active on each social media especially Twitter, they started their campaign from microblogging sites. After a long haul, Congress too became active, Rahul Gandhi got acceptability in the young age group. He added a million Twitter followers. Facebook and Twitter following of the Youth Congress and National Students Union of India have seen similar spikes. The people behind this change of sorts are many, earlier the communications strategy group had Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma, and Jairam Ramesh, encouraged with the inclusion of younger leaders like Randeep Singh Surjewala, Sushmita Dev, and Rajeev Gowda. As time passed, Congress needed new faces to add charm to their campaign and here came the fairer side of their team. Earlier, only Priyanka Chaturvedi was vocal and in support with Congress on social media.

On the other hand, there are some Congress leaders and party workers who believe that Priyanka Chaturvedi, being a follower of late Congress leader Gurudas Kamat, is adopting his tactics. It has been multiple times when Kamat blackmailed the party and threatened to quit and returned silently after getting political perks. A part of the party workers too was believed to be miffed with Chaturvedi’s behaviour which was the root cause of whatever happened in Mathura.

If Priyanka Chaturvedi would’ve been a real staunch supporter of Congress, resolving whatever discomfort she was having in the party would’ve been more mature. While the crucial general elections are on the run, such political drama looks inappropriate. She indeed has a lot of political ambitions but her political role got restricted only as the national spokesperson of Congress. She was denied an active and front role in national politics. Priyanka was also hoping a ticket from Mumbai. While Congress itself has a thin chance of victory in Maharashtra, many veteran leaders of the party are waiting to hold crucial posts even if the party wins somehow. In such a scenario, Priyanka’s political ambition to be MP or MLA remains a remote dream. Keeping these in mind, it is believed by many that she has taken an advantage of the timing and whatever incidents had happened to switch her side. A lady, who always believed in Congress’s ideology and voiced in favour of a secular India, all of a sudden adopted the right-wing ideology! Is it going to be easy for her or will she be proven another party-hopper?


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Vaidehi Taman
Vaidehi Tamanhttps://authorvaidehi.com
Vaidehi Taman an Accredited Journalist from Maharashtra is bestowed with three Honourary Doctorate in Journalism. Vaidehi has been an active journalist for the past 21 years, and is also the founding editor of an English daily tabloid – Afternoon Voice, a Marathi web portal – Mumbai Manoos, and The Democracy digital video news portal is her brain child. Vaidehi has three books in her name, "Sikhism vs Sickism", "Life Beyond Complications" and "Vedanti". She is an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker, OSCP offensive securities, Certified Security Analyst and Licensed Penetration Tester that caters to her freelance jobs.
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