UP assembly polls: Priyanka to campaign beyond family pocket boroughs

Change in approach spurred by feedback from party rank and file; They want her to be chief ministerial face

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will campaign beyond family pocket boroughs of Rae Bareli and Amethi in the run up to the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, say sources in the Congress party. The elections are due by February 2017.

Forty-four-year old Priyanka has herself stayed from contesting elections. But she has been campaigning for her mother and Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s Lok Sabha seat of Rae Bareli and her brother Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi constituency. She has campaigned in these two seats for Congress candidates not just during Lok Sabha elections but also in 2012 assembly elections.

The change in approach has been spurred by feedback from the party rank and file. They want her to be the chief ministerial face. Over the past two months, election strategist Prashant Kishor and his team at the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) have interacted with Congress workers at the zonal level.

The two-month long exercise reached out to Congress workers at the village and block level. Kishor and his team met Congress block presidents and frontal organizations, like the Seva Dal. According to an IPAC team member, the feedback was unanimous. “Everyone wanted Priyanka to be the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress party,” said the source.

However, Priyanka is unlikely to agree. But she has agreed to campaigning for the party candidates not just in Rae Bareli and Amethi but across UP. The party is yet to confirm this but there are reports that Priyanka might address over 150 rallies. However, announcing Priyanka its chief ministerial candidate is fraught with risk for a Congress that has performed miserably in assembly elections. In 2012 polls, the Congress, which was then in alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, bagged a mere 28 seats in the 403-member assembly. Its tally was 22 in 2007 and 25 seats in 2002. The party could win only two seats, that of Rae Bareli and Amethi, in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sources claimed they are not worried at the news. The BJP, said a UP leader, will launch an onslaught on her husband Robert Vadra’s alleged land deals.