Priyanka Gandhi officially entered Indian politics on Wednesday ahead of a looming national election, joining the opposition campaign in a crucial state where the party her family founded hopes to unseat prime minister Narendra Modi.
Ms Gandhi – whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all prime ministers – was appointed Congress party chief in the east of Uttar Pradesh, considered India’s most politically important state.
She will report to her brother Rahul Gandhi, a fellow scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, who heads the main opposition party that ruled India for much of its post-independence history.
The news came as Mr Modi gave an interview about his penurious youth, seeking to burnish his religious credentials ahead of the vote.
Mr Modi said he would spend "reflective" days alone each year in the jungle to attain self-realisation.
“Not many people know this, but I would go away for five days somewhere in the jungle during the Diwali holidays every year, a place with only clean water and no people,” Mr Modi, 68, told the Humans of Bombay Facebook page on Tuesday.
In a rare appearance on social media, Mr Modi said when people asked him who he was going to meet, he would reply: “Myself”.
“I would reflect in the jungle and the strength that this time gave me still helps me handle life and its various experiences,” he said.
AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
In his wide-ranging remarks, Mr Modi spoke of his deprived childhood as the son of a tea-seller in India’s western Gujarat state and his mysterious two-year meditative stint in the Himalayas, after which he embarked on his political career.
He also expanded on how his eight-member family lived in a tiny house, and how he and his brother would take turns to keep alight the kitchen fire on which his illiterate mother would concoct lineaments for babies and children in their poor neighbourhood.
Mr Modi has long flaunted his destitute childhood in his run up to becoming India’s prime minster in 2014.
Mr Modi contrasted his humble childhood with the privileged background of his main political rival Mr Gandhi. Elections are scheduled for April.
The Nehru-Gandhi family has given India three premiers since independence 72 years ago: Mr and Ms Gandhi’s father Rajiv, their grandmother Indira and their great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru.
They grew up in grand surroundings, attended exclusive Indian schools and Mr Gandhi studied at Trinity College Cambridge, where his father was educated.
Analysts said Mr Modhi’s disadvantaged past endeared him to tens of millions of similarly deprived Indian voters who helped his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party secure India’s first parliamentary majority after three decades of federal coalition governments.