The official Twitter account of Congress recently shared a clipped video of Gandhi scion Priyanka Gandhi making ‘dosas’, a thin pancake in South Indian cuisine made from a fermented batter of ground black lentils and rice, which is a popular street food across India.
With the video, however, the Congress party took the sycophancy to an altogether different level, insinuating that there is no limit to the power that someone who has ‘skilful hands’ to cook ‘perfect dosas’ can bring to the world.
Perfect dosas are just the beginning; with such skillful hands, there's no limit to the power they can bring to the world. pic.twitter.com/qsgUw6IBeJ
— Congress (@INCIndia) April 26, 2023
In the video, Priyanka Gandhi is seen in a kitchen preparing dosas. A man stands beside her and appears helping her with preparing the popular South Indian cuisine and guiding her through other paraphernalia.
Except, the reality is not what Congress would have us believe, which is usually the case where they tend to exaggerate their leaders’ imagined expertise in random fields to extrapolate it into the realm of politics. Of course, with the results the Gandhi scions, both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, have delivered to the party—losing elections after elections and alienating veteran Congress politicians—the party is expected to take solace, nay celebrate and aggrandise their leaders for either preparing dosas or embarking upon a rudderless political boondoggle such as ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.
Media organisation Asianet has shared an unedited and unmuted version of the video where Priyanka Gandhi is seen preparing dosas. The video is from the famous Mylari Hotel in Mysuru where Ms Gandhi ventures into its kitchen after having an idli and crispy masala dosa for breakfast.
#KarnatakaElection2023 Priyanka Gandhi makes dosa at Mylari Hotel in #Mysuru after having idli and crispy masala dosa for breakfast at the famous hotel pic.twitter.com/5seUcSGfOR
— Asianet Newsable (@AsianetNewsEN) April 26, 2023
In the longer and unedited version of the video, Ms Priyanka Gandhi is seen as utterly clueless, she just pous one cup of batter, fails to make a proper circle and leaves batter dripping all over, till the actual cook comes and tries to save the unsalvageable dosas. Later, when it is time to flip the dosas upside down, Ms Gandhi struggles with turning around to cook them on the other side.
As it turns out, the overheated dosas are far from ‘perfect’, as they appear brittle and all burnt up. But for the Congress party, the dosas were ‘perfect’ and emblematic of the ‘power’ wielded by Ms Priyanka Gandhi.
While Congress lays it on thick Priyanka Gandhi’s culinary skills, her brother, Rahul Gandhi, had been quite honest and candid about his sister’s cooking competence. In his recent video with Kunal Vijayakar, when he went on a food walk in Delhi with the food journalist, the Gandhi scion said his mother, Sonia Gandhi, made the finest food in his family.
‘My sister won’t like it but my mom cook’s the best food. She is number 2 and I’m number 3,” Gandhi said while munching on a Chhola Bhatura at Nathu’s Sweets during his interview with Vijayakar.
Nevertheless, the entire episode and Congress’ attempt to exalt Priyanka Gandhi over her ‘dosa making’ skills reveals that the party is desperate to elevate their leader who is yet to prove her mettle in politics, even as the party faces tough political headwinds with opposition leaders, most notably Mamata Banerjee, refusing to accept Congress’ leadership going into the 2024 general elections.