Prashant Kishor devises Cong's strategy for UP polls

Seven teams of poll strategist Prashant Kishor will tour districts falling in 14 divisions of Uttar Pradesh this month to plan out an electoral campaign for Congress for Assembly polls due next year.
Team PK will hold extensive tours of districts falling in 14 divisions from May 8 to 22, a party release said here today.
The team had earlier met UP Congress leaders of different cells and departments and also toured three divisions including Gorakhpur and Allahabad.
The divisions which will be covered by the teams are Devi Patan, Basti, Azamgarh, Faizabad, Mirzapur, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Kanpur, Saharanpur, Meerut, Aligarh, Agra, Moradabad and Bareilly, the release said.

During these tours, the team will stay in each district for two days and will interact with office bearers of the district Congress committees, leaders of frontal organisations, blocks, cells and divisions, it said.
The team will also visit the sitting and former peoples' representatives.

Babbar criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for
cashless society, saying people of the country are not "plastic" but "emotional".
"In the country where 90 per cent sector is unorganised people cannot be plastic rather they are emotional. They help each other due to emotions. BJP will have to suffer losses for what it has done creating problems for common man," he said.

Asked why the agressive campaign started by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in UP has slowed down, Babbar said it was because of the Parliament session as the entire focus of the top leaders has shifted there.
"Important leaders of the state including PL Punia, Pramod Tiwari, Ghulam Nabi Azad have got busy in Parliament where burning issues are being raised. We have to focus there. But soon we will again be concentrating in UP," he said.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Congress had secured only two seats in UP with Sonia and Rahul emerging victorious from their family strongholds of Rae Bareli and Amethi respectively.

The party is trying to regain its lost moorings in the state where it currently has only 29 MLAs in the 403-member Assembly.
Congress has been in political wilderness in UP since 1989 following the emergence of 'Mandal-Mandir' politics and rise of BSP which took away its crucial Dalit vote base.
Mayawati's party had also lured a large chunk of Brahmin votes in the past when candidates of the community were given tickets by her to contest elections.
The Brahmin community plays a significant role in poll outcome in central and eastern UP as it is the dominant caste there.

Once a traditional vote bank of the Congress, Brahmins in the state shifted allegiance to BJP in the aftermath of the emergence of 'Mandal-Mandir' politics.
Perhaps, to keep Brahmins in good humour, the party is projecting former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit as its chief ministerial face.
In a bid to woo Hindu votes ahead of the Assembly polls in UP, Rahul Gandhi recently offered prayers at the Hanuman Garhi Temple in Ayodhya, becoming the first member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to visit Ayodhya since the demolition of the disputed structure in 1992.
Rahul recently completed 2,000 km 'kisan yatra' in Uttar Pradesh to woo voters in favour of his party.