Question: Can Priyanka Chaturvedi categorically say that she's not joining the BJP?
Her Answer: The made-up stories really angered me. Forget angering me, it actually made me feel, okay, if they want to play this game, let me play along. They'll keep planting stories about me, and they can feel very happy to do that if it earns them their money. But I am...'
Priyanka Chaturvedi Unfiltered
- The Rajya Sabha-seat rumour that stunned Priyanka Chaturvedi: A price tag, a party seat, and a reaction she couldn't hide -- "oh my god, this is a new one for me."
- The word she uses for political defections: Not "betrayal," not "corruption" -- something far more scandalous involving money, laundering, and a "washing machine."
- What Priyanka Gandhi whispered to her on her last day in Parliament: A hug, and four words she says she's carried with her ever since.
- The moment her voice broke on camera: Talking about her surname, her city, and being called something she says she'll never accept.
- The "charmer" she named on live podcast: A quality in parliamentarians she says stimulates her intellectually -- and the name is not who you'd guess.
- Her verdict on Uddhav Thackeray, in one word: "Gentleman" -- but the story behind why cuts deeper than politics.
She spent six years inside Parliament fighting three-minute time limits, party whips, and a system she says increasingly renders the ordinary voter's ballot meaningless. Now, as a former Rajya Sabha MP, Priyanka Chaturvedi is speaking with a freedom she never quite had on the floor of the House -- and in this candid, wide-ranging conversation on The Rediff Podcast, she holds nothing back.
Paid Crores for a Seat? The Rumours, the Tears, and the Outsider Tag
The former Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP opens up about the persistent rumours that have followed her for years -- that she's secretly negotiating a move to the BJP, that she paid crores to secure her Rajya Sabha seat, that she's an "outsider" undeserving of a Marathi Manoos ticket.
Her response to each is sharper and more emotional than the last, culminating in a striking, tearful defence of her identity as a Mumbaikar: A first-generation mover whose family found home, career, and voice in Maharashtra.
But this isn't just a conversation about personal grievances. Chaturvedi goes deep into some of the most contentious issues rocking Indian politics right now -- the violent police crackdown on student protesters at Jantar Mantar over the NEET paper leak scandal and her unflinching claim that an "education mafia" continues to operate with political cover.
She also discusses the Women's Reservation Bill and the fraught politics of delimitation.
Priyanka Chaturvedi reflects on why Uddhav Thackeray didn't see the June 2022 split coming -- the moment Eknath Shinde walked away with a large bloc of MLAs to Surat, that ultimately split the Shiv Sena from the middle.
She points to two overlapping factors: The isolation of the COVID period, when party leaders operated largely online rather than face-to-face, and Uddhav Thackeray's ill health at the time -- a phase she says was quietly used to plan the split behind the scenes.
She admits she wasn't immune to the same blind spot. As a newly inducted Rajya Sabha MP in 2020, she deliberately stayed focused on Delhi and out of Maharashtra's internal matters, not wanting to be seen as overstepping. "Honestly, I did not see this coming," she says.
She recalls the moment the news broke -- right after landing in Mumbai following the Rajya Sabha and MLC elections -- and the attempts made to win Shinde back, including sending Milind Narwekar to Surat, though she notes the choice of destination itself hinted at how far things had already gone.
"See, what was very clear when you choose Surat as a destination, you know whose control you're going into, right? Which den are you moving into? So then the conversation becomes unnecessary, right?"
Why She Really Walked Out on the Congress
The conversation takes an unusually personal turn when she recounts the real story behind her 2019 exit from the Congress party -- a decision she says was rooted not in ambition, but in a demand for dignity that the party failed to honour. She reveals what Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi told her at the time, and why she believes the truth of her departure has been distorted by years of rumour-mongering.
From Political 'Laundering' to Trolls: The Unfiltered Reality of Opposition Politics
Elsewhere, she offers a rare, warm portrait of Uddhav Thackeray and Aditya Thackeray -- describing the kind of political loyalty and policy-mindedness she says is vanishing from Indian public life -- while delivering a scathing critique of what she calls the "laundering" of political parties through engineered defections, from the Shiv Sena split to the NCP, AAP, and now TMC.
There's also a lighter side: Her thoughts on Parliament fashion, the rudraksha she's worn for over a decade, her early career as a columnist and book blogger before politics, and a refreshingly honest reflection on how she and her family handle relentless online trolling.
Whether you agree with her politics or not, this is a conversation that captures the anxieties, contradictions, and raw emotion running through India's Opposition politics today -- delivered by someone who has lived it from the inside and is no longer bound by the constraints of a three-minute mic.
Watch the full podcast to hear it all, unfiltered.
Interview: Prasanna D Zore/Rediff
Video Production: Rajesh Karkera/Rediff, Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff, Satish Bodas/Rediff
Editing: Saahil Acharekar/Rediff
