THE GANDHI TRINITY VS SOLO MODI

Parliament, where the numbers game wins, is familiar with double whammies. This time, the Congress will have a triple whammy when Priyanka Gandhi enters the Lok Sabha as a member from South India.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

For the first time in parliamentary history, the party's holy trinity will rule the filial faithful: materfamilias Sonia Gandhi and her boisterous brood Rahul and Priyanka. An entire family playing discrete roles in the establishment is normally found in a monarchy or a dictatorship. This time, the unique troika has only one role in democracy: take on Narendra Modi's BJP in parliament.

Though MP families are legion, the Gandhis are an institution of inheritance as their party's political face and ideological soul. Its organizational hierarchy being symbolic, the words of the three Gandhis are the unwritten law. The legislative role of the triple timocrats is the current conversation among the party's timorous trucklers. By precedent, it is clear each Gandhi will have an unambiguous role that defines their role and rule.

Saint Sonia: Canonised by personal tragedy and professional longevity, silence is her most powerful weapon. She will stay away from day-to-day politics. The 77-year-old leading lady has been politically active for the past 26 years, portraying herself as Joan of Arc against the BJP and Modi. She keeps the non-BJP parties together without making mutual personal attacks, unlike some Congress netas do. Though local leaders in West Bengal, Delhi and Kerala wax vitriolic against Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and Pinarayi Vijayan, personal mudslinging is not her habit.

Because of her perceived neutrality and sobriety, her acceptability as UPA and Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson is supreme. Her hagiographic halo is derived from her self-denial of prime ministership in 2004 to keep the opposition united and installing a 16-party UPA coalition that ran the country for a decade.