RAE BARELI: As the 2019 Lok Sabha poll battle draws closer, poster war is getting intense in Uttar Pradesh. The latest series of posters has come up in Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of Sonia Gandhi, calling her daughter Priyanka Vadra an “absconding emotional blackmailer” on Monday.
Priyanka has been accused of not showing up to stand by the people of the constituency that sends her mother to Parliament. Though Priyanka was until a few years ago the first choice of Congress workers in Uttar Pradesh, especially the Nehru-Gandhi family’s pocket boroughs, to become party chief, she has not been active in politics for several years and campaigns only in Rae Bareli and neighbouring Amethi to drum up support for her mother and brother Rahul Gandhi, respectively.
Hundreds of posters with Priyanka’s pictures on them came up across the district overnight, referring to her as “missing”, and mocking her for vanishing from the constituency after the elections. They also label her as an “emotional blackmailer”. “Even during a number of tragedies which struck the constituency since her last visit, Priyanka has been reluctant to reach out to the people,” reads a message on the posters. It’s a reference to Unchahar boiler blast at NTPC plant, Harchandpur derailment of Farakka Express and some other mishaps.
Saying that Priyanka had missed the opportunity to visit Rae Bareli on festival like Durga Puja and Dussehra, the posters ask, “Will you come next on Eid?”
Calling it the handiwork of mischievous political rivals, Congress district president V K Shukla claimed the party was capable of giving a befitting reply to all such elements who had stooped to such level and had indulged in the “shameful act”.
Priyanka is seen as heir apparent to her mother as the next Congress contestant from Rae Bareli. The constituency has been a Congress stronghold since former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi won from here in 1980. In fact, Rae Bareli and Amethi are the only two seats which the Congress party won in 2014 from the state. The ruling BJP has been working hard to wrest these two seats from the Nehru-Gandhi family in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Recently, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced a `2.5-crore package from his MPLAD fund for the development of Rae Bareli. To counter that, Congress leader Kapil Sibal, too, announced `2 crore for Amethi.