A few days ago, the Pune district collectorate was abuzz with news of Soniya Gandhi having collected a nomination form from there for the Lok Sabha polls. Now, that meant a seismic shift in Gandhi’s politics. Why would she leave her stronghold of Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh and come all the way to Maharashtra?
Then, suddenly, someone pointed out that there was something unusual about the spelling of her name: the extra ‘y’.
To straighten out the facts, Soniya Gandhi is a homemaker in a lower middleclass family which lives in a one-room tenement at Punyai Nagar in Pune’s Dhankawdi area.
Her husband, an advocate, is called Rajiv, mother-in-law Indira and brother-in-law Sanjay.
But Soniya’s sister-in-law, for some inexplicable reason, is called Jayashree, not Maneka.
Jayashree told DNA that her in-laws were dedicated fans of the Nehru-Gandhi family and had named themselves after India’s first family in politics. Soniya was originally Vaishali till her name was suitably changed after her marriage with Rajiv.
But, Jayashree said, the family’s allegiance did not extend to the Congress: Rajiv is a BJP activist.
The other spoiler in this story is that Soniya failed to submit her nomination form on Saturday, which was the last date for filing nominations.
Her plan was to contest from the Baramati constituency against Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, but, a friend of the Gandhis Sanjay Bhosale says, she withdrew because her father-in-law was not pleased with her decision.
“Their names are catchy and we learnt about their election plans from the newspapers,” Narendra Jain, who resides in the same colony, says.
A neighbour, Surekha Shelar, says, “A number of people have been visiting our area asking about Rajiv and Soniya Gandhi, causing much amusement here. We are happy to share in the limelight of our neighbours.”
Some of that happiness surely would have translated into votes. But then fathers-in-law have always been such spoilsports!
