The BJP on Wednesday tried to project Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s plunge into active politics as the Congress’s admission of Rahul Gandhi’s failure, but it came across more as an effort by the BJP to mask its feeling of being unsettled by the surprise move ahead of the 2019 general election.

The top leadership of the BJP chose silence and innuendoes, possibly trying to assess how the projection of Priyanka would play out in the polls, but the second rung sought to counter the massive buzz by slamming Rahul and once again harping on the Congress’s dependence on dynasty.

“The Congress has basically publicly announced that Rahul Gandhi has failed and needs crutches from within the family. Because of his rejection by ‘grand alliance’ parties, he has opted for a family alliance,” BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.

“All appointments are from one family. And this is the fundamental difference between the Congress and the BJP. In the Congress, the family is the party. In the BJP, the party is family,” Patra added.

By fielding Patra the BJP attempted to send out the message that it was not giving much importance to the appointment of Priyanka as the Congress’s general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Internally, however, BJP leaders appeared shaken by the impact the announcement of Priyanka’s entry into politics had created. The move was seen by BJP leaders as an effort by the Congress to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his constituency Varanasi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath in his terrain in Gorakhpur, both of which are located in eastern Uttar Pradesh, which Priyanka has been given charge of.

Many leaders were heard debating how Priyanka could impact the polls in the heartland state, but when approached by reporters they termed it a “non-event”.

“This is big news only for news channels and newspapers. On the ground it will have no impact,” a BJP leader said. The leader said that if Priyanka sways the electorate, it would harm the Bahujan Samaj Party-Samajwadi Party alliance and prove beneficial for the BJP.

Prime Minister Modi indirectly referred to the Congress move during a video-conference interaction with party workers from Maharashtra on the NaMo app by saying: “Unlike many cases where family is the party, for the BJP, the party is family.”

Some ministers took to Twitter trying to stress that the so-called masterstroke by the Congress would come a cropper in front of Modi’s popularity.

“Apart from the dynasty, everyone else is useless in Congress. Nobody is effective other than the family. Whatever they do, this time Modi government again,” social justice minister Thawar Chand Gehlot tweeted.