Chennai: It was a political jamboree for the ruling DMK and a successful one at that for the party's women's face, Kanimozhi, MP. But, it was Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who stole the show by reiterating her family's bond with the state by connecting the past with the present. At her first ever public address in the state at the DMK's 'Women's Rights Conference', she used the tragedy of her father's assassination and the personal loss to endear herself to the masses, especially the women.
At the very outset, Priyanka recalled her first visit to Tamil Nadu in 1991 vividly narrating the scene at the airport. “Thirty-two years ago, on the darkest night of my life, I first set foot on this land of Tamil Nadu, to collect my father's shattered body. I was 19-year-old and my mother was a few years younger than I am today. As the door of the plane opened the night grabbed us and drew us in. But, I was not afraid of it. Because the worst thing I could have imagined had already happened. A few hours earlier, my father had been killed. I had walked towards my mother that night knowing that the words I was to speak would break her heart. Yet, I spoke to them. And I watched as the light of happiness was extinguished from her eyes forever,” she recounted.
Continuing, she said, “We walked down the stairs of the plane onto the tarmac of Meenambakkam airport terminal, shocked and alone. Then suddenly, as if sent by the embarrassed Gods, who had failed us, a crowd of women dressed in blue saris surrounded us. They were women, who worked at the airport. They held my mother in their arms and cried inconsolably with her as if they were all my mothers. As if they, too, had lost their beloved. In those sad tears a bond formed between me, my heart, and the women of Tamil Nadu that I can neither explain nor ever erase.”
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Then, affirming the bond afresh, Priyanka addressed the audience in flawless Tamil, mostly women, “You are my mothers, you are my sisters, and I am honoured to be here today, to have the opportunity to speak to you about us: the women of India.” It drew instant applause from the crowd. And, it is the first time that she has appeared on a public platform in Tamil Nadu. Earlier, too, she had visited in 2007 to meet Nalini Sriharan, convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. It was a secret trip to the Vellore Central Prison for Women where Nalini was incarcerated. Nalini and all the other seven convicts have now been released. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumpudur near Chennai ahead of addressing an election rally. His body was kept at the Government General Hospital before being flown to New Delhi.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi, when asked about his father's assassination, had made it clear that the family had moved on and harboured nothing about it. Interestingly, Priyanka has made use of it to connect with the people. Her persona resembling her grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, is to the advantage of the Congress.
