Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Indian politics is in a tizzy these days. The reason is the entry of yet another Gandhi scion, Priyanka Gandhi, into politics. She is sister of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, daughter of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, granddaughter of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, and great-granddaughter of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Priyanka, 42, is avidly followed by the Indian media very closely, just like all other members of the Nehru-Gandhi clan. Her father Rajiv was credited with injecting new intensity and urgency into Sino-Indian bilateral relations almost three decades ago.

The Indian media is agog with reports that Priyanka is going to be pitchforked onto the Indian political scene with a prime responsibility in the 129-year-old Congress party.

She may be a general-secretary in charge of organizational matters of the party, or she may be appointed as president of the Congress party organization in India's most populous and electorally most important state, Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 parliamentarians into the 543-member Lok Sabha.

The development is fraught with major implications for the Indian politics, at a time when Narendra Modi is firmly ensconced not only as the Indian prime minister, but also as a top leader of his BJP which is enjoying a clear majority on its own in the Lok Sabha after the recently concluded general elections.

The Modi-led government has to be doubly chary of the Priyanka missile that the Congress party is all set to launch, because she is perceived as a replica of her charismatic grandmother Indira who revived the Congress party and brought it back to power in a couple of years after the party's electoral debacle in the late 1970s.

Priyanka's sartorial sense, her hairdo, her demeanor, and most of all her aggression and confidence remind the Indians of Indira. Moreover, she has a clean slate. She has not been that active in politics previously.

She has made hundreds of speeches at hundreds of political rallies, but all for her brother Rahul and mother Sonia, in their respective parliamentary constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli from Uttar Pradesh. These were the only two seats the Congress party won in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general elections.

Priyanka will present the stiffest challenge for the new BJP President Amit Shah, a Modi loyalist, who did wonders for his party by winning 70 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP's political fortunes are already on the wane, as is evident by the party's humiliating loss in by-elections for three assembly seats in Uttarakhand. The Congress won all three seats, wresting two from the BJP.

By-elections for 10 assembly seats in Bihar are due later this month, and most non-BJP parties have already joined hands, indicating a similar unsavory outcome for Modi and the BJP.

Thus, Priyanka's entry into politics will inevitably change political equations in India, much to the discomfiture of Modi and the BJP.

But there are two negatives to be borne in mind. Priyanka's wayward husband Robert Vadra is believed to be one of the prime reasons for the Congress debacle in the recent general elections. Therefore, she has a political albatross that she is wearing round her neck.

Second, Priyanka's entry into politics would mean an admission of the failure of her brother Rahul, a de facto prime ministerial candidate.

For the Nehru-Gandhi clan, that may be a painful price, even if it comes as the cost of launching another of their political stars.

The author is a New Delhi-based independent journalist and a strategic analyst. bhootnath004@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Kishkindha