It was July 1977, when former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sensed a significant political moment when 11 Dalits in Bihar's Belchi village were massacred by an upper caste gang. She took a cavalcade of 35 cars to the nondescript village, rode an elephant and managed to gather a spectacular crowd despite a recent election defeat and had the locals hail her as the messiah of the oppressed class.

Cut to July 2019, her granddaughter Priyanka Gandhi seems to be heading towards a similar moment in Sonbhadra where 10 tribals were gunned down by the land mafia.

Two days after the Sonbhadra massacre, Priyanka Gandhi, who is in-charge of Uttar Pradesh East, rushed to meet the families of the victims and was detained by the police on her way.

Indira Gandhi's visit to Belchhi: A well-calculated political move?

The detention continued till the next day as Priyanka refused to go back without meeting the families and the UP government refused to let her ahead citing prohibitory orders.

As she was held and taken to a guest house, Priyanka said, "I only want to meet the affected families, whose members have been mercilessly shot dead. A boy of my son's age was shot at and is lying in hospital. Tell me on what legal basis I am stopped here."

Ten people were killed and 28 injured in the clash between supporters of a village headman, Yagya Dutt, and the Gond tribals in Sonbhadra's Ghorawal area.

A relentless Priyanka Gandhi squatted on the road with her supporters at Narainpur, insisting that she be allowed to proceed and meet the families of those killed.

She sat at the guest house patiently talking to Congress workers as guest house saw a prolonged power outage at night.

All this while, the ruling BJP failed to capture the moment and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ended up blaming the previous Congress governments for the land dispute.

As the victim families came down to meet Priyanka at the guest house, it brought back the memories of Indira Gandhi meeting the Dalit families in Belchi sitting atop Moti, the elephant.

As Indira Gandhi made her journey, she was greeted with slogans such as "Indira tere abhav men Harijan mare jate hain (Indira, in your absence, Harijan are being killed)".

When handed a microphone in the remote village, Indira said, "I have not come here to make speeches, I have come to express my sympathies."

She won hearts on the memorable trip of the 1977 summer when Congress was thrown out of power in the same constituency a few months ago.

Women, children and villagers gathered around the road with garlands and food for Indira Gandhi, a leader they had only seen pictures of and admired from afar. She listened to them, their appeals and stories and promised to discuss the issues with her party members.

Similarly, Priyanka Gandhi sat with the families of the victims, hugged them, consoled them and lent a patient ear while slamming the Yogi Adityanath government for the brutal killings.

A few Congress leaders, too, pointed out the similarities and said Priyanka's sensitivity was inherited from her grandmother.