Our focus is 2022 UP elections: Priyanka

Hours after she asked her party workers to start preparing for the 2022 UP Assembly elections, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday started marathon meetings with the party's booth workers in her mother Sonia Gandhi's Parliamentary constituency here.

Priyanka, who is on a three-day campaign in Uttar Pradesh, arrived at the guest house in Bhuemau around 11.45 a.m.

Earlier at a programme near Gauriganj, the district headquarters of her brother and Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, she surprised the party workers with her query. "Are you preparing for the elections? I am not talking about 2019, but 2022?" she asked a worker.

Her comment came as an indication of Congress' plan for the state and the reason Priyanka has been brought there.

Appointing her in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh on January 23, Rahul Gandhi had told reporters, "She hasn't been sent here for four months, she has been sent here with a larger plan... We will not only defeat BJP in 2019 but also win 2022 elections."

Rahul Gandhi reiterated the point in several speeches following that in Amethi.

In 2017, the Congress lost all the five Assembly constituencies in Amethi to BJP (4) and the Samajwadi Party (1).

(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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