Now It's Jaffer Sharief Batting for Priyanka

After Vasant Sathe, another senior Congress leader today made a strong pitch for Priyanka Vadra to take the "centre stage" in party affairs because she has "greater mass appeal" than Rahul Gandhi.

"Priyanka is there in politics. She is taking care of the constituencies of her mother and brother. Why should she not take the centre stage because she has greater mass appeal?", wondered former Union Minister C K Jaffer Sharief.

Sharief (77), who like Sathe (86) was a strong loyalist of the late Indira Gandhi, shares his view that that Priyanka is the one who has more mass appeal as compared to Rahul.

The leader from Karnataka said that he "entirely endorsed" Sathe's plea that Priyanaka should play a more active role to help the party get back to power on its own in the 2014 elections by discarding the "crutches".

Jaffer Sharief said the Congress' all the three in the Congress' "first family"-- Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka--can work together as a team and "if you have mass appeal, you don't need allies."

Noting that "no other leader has greater acceptability than them", he wanted both the children to help their mother in her task as the "country is large".

There is need for "more dynamic and charismatic" leaders for the organisation at the present juncture, he said.