After joining active politics, Priyanka Gandhi was made the Congress general secretary in-charge of the crucial eastern Uttar Pradesh in January 2019 and then as the general secretary in-charge of the entire state.

Though the performance of her party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was not very good, she continued with her efforts to strengthen the organisation at the grassroots level.

In December 2023, Priyanka Gandhi was made a Congress general secretary “without a portfolio”.

She emerged as the party’s key strategist and later, its star campaigner for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

She also helped strengthen the organisation and led the party’s campaign in Himachal Pradesh, where the grand old party wrested power from the BJP.

Her campaign helped the Congress in the general election, in which the party got 99 seats, up from 52 in 2019.

Priyanka Gandhi is married to businessman Robert Vadra.

With the Congress putting up a surprisingly good show in the Lok Sabha polls, Priyanka Gandhi cemented her position as the party’s talisman.

Countering Modi over his “gold and mangalsutra” remarks during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, an emotionally-charged Priyanka Gandhi had reminded the voters that her mother, Sonia Gandhi, had sacrificed her mangalsutra for the country.

The Congress general secretary did not take the electoral plunge at that time but opted to contest the Wayanad bypoll after guiding her party to a stronger position in Parliament, compared to its tally of seats in 2014 and 2019.

Discussing her childhood, the pain of her father Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination and her mother’s grief, she had steered the Congress’s campaign during the general election, adroitly walking the tightrope between striking a familial chord and discussing national-level issues, and proved to be a strategist, orator and mass mobiliser — all rolled into one.

As the curtains came down on the 2024 general election, analysts totted up the numbers.

Priyanka Gandhi took part in 108 public meetings and roadshows.

She campaigned in 16 states and a Union territory, and also addressed two party workers’ conferences in Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh.

Most of her speeches were akin to a conversation with the crowd, establishing a connect and giving people the impression that here was a person who was known to them, someone sharing her feelings and thoughts with them.

She had also accompanied Rahul Gandhi to Wayanad following devastating landslides in the region and has been involved in the relief-and-rescue work launched by the party.

Priyanka Gandhi’s poll debut comes at a time when the Congress has been jolted by an electoral defeat in Haryana and it would be interesting to see if she would be able to steer the Wayanad campaign, along with the canvassing for the Jharkhand and Maharashtra polls, to put the grand old party back on track.