Jan 20:Even at its best, politics can be drab and dreary. The ceaseless back-and-forth of charges and counter-charges by various political parties and leaders, which acquires a fever-pitch come election time, is enough to make anyone cynical and jaded at the utter pointlessness of it all.

So unimaginative have current-day leaders become that even political slogans are being recycled from times past: the invocation of the garibi hatao slogan some 40 years after it was first used on the stump by Indira Gandhi must count as the most damning admission of the failure to end poverty, yet it’s being offered as if it’s a new and magical formulation.In their endeavour to package all this drabness and offer saleable narratives, the media sometimes leans on personalities who infuse “colour” by breaking the monochromatic dullness of politics. The recent advent of Priyanka Gandhi on the campaign platform in Uttar Pradesh, as a trusted ‘trump card’ of the Congress, has injected just such a colourful personality. It has predictably set off a gush of reportage about her charm offensive in the boondocks in the cause of the Congress party, whose campaign in the state is being overseen by her brother Rahu GandhiThe story of this double-barrrelled bhai-behen campaign to outgun the original behenji of Uttar Pradesh politics, and the other formidable political formations in the state, doubtless has an enduring appeal to it. For dynasty watchers and confirmed Congress supporters, it also has an endearing quality to it.From all accounts, Priyanka is very personable, and brings a certain charisma that, commentators say, her brother is palpably deficient in. The fact that unlike Rahul, she isn’t seen overmuch on the political stage, but is pulled out only as a campaign bazooka at election time, also means that she retains a freshness about her.That may account for why even angry jobless workers in Uttar Pradesh, who were staging a protest demonstration, were thawed by her “common touch”